Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Prioritizing Global Warming

Watch the video below and ask yourself if global warming shouldn't be regarded as the most important issue facing us today.  More than civil liberties.  More than war.  Are we on an environmental path that will induce more suffering than all of our future wars combined?



Links to sources from the talk are available here.

6 comments:

Chad said...

http://thegwpf.org/international-news/4932-the-cold-sun-why-the-climate-catastrophe-wont-happen.html

Chad said...

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/scientist-accepts-cash-for-climate-20120215-1t7ho.html

How would you like to receive $90k a year to blog? I bet that I could convince you - with an offer of $90k a year - to promote just about anything I want.

If this narrative changes course, the money train ends - the scientists know this so why would they search for a truth that ends their funding?

Jon said...

Your first link is an interview with a guy that was on the board of Royal Dutch Shell and is now CEO of a gas supply company. He says global warming isn't a problem. What the hell, Chad?

Your second link is really quite amazing. It says that global warming deniers are bought and paid for. Anthony Watts, a prominent science denialist that I've discussed before, is paid $90K per year to deny the science and sell his own grandchildren down the river to make a few bucks. These are people paid off to lie and say global warming isn't really a problem.

So are you asking if $90K would be enough for me to lie through my teeth and pretend global warming isn't a problem, like Anthony Watts does? No. I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I care about the world I'm leaving to my children. My integrity is worth more than that.

So when are you going to start listening to the overwhelming scientific consensus as opposed to people paid to lie on behalf of the fossil fuel industry?

Examinator said...

Chad,
Your challenge to Jon was both as lacking in insight into the topic, him as it displays your superficial reasoning. I can tell you I've walked away from offer of 3 times that for less reasons.
You remind me of the guy in the bar who says to a delicious young woman obviously looking “ would you have sex with me for $1000000 ? to which she thought a bit and replied “perhaps”.
He then said how about $100? to which she answered “No! what do you think I am”
He answered “ we have established that ...we're just haggling over the price”.
He had over interpreted the 'perhaps' and assumed she had HIS overly simplistic, less than insightful mind set. He actually said more about his mindset than hers.
Like him, you my friend, see everyone and everything with a price tag! If you had more insight/ actual thought through reasoning Jon may reasonably be insulted....
You really must stop personalising debates and commodifying everything else.
Sadly this superficial reasoning reasoning is both endemic in those who are essentially ignorant of the facts and are indulging is motivated reasoning. (upside down logic...starting with a conclusion then selective choosing data that offers confirmation . Rather than the proven scientific approach going where the facts lead)
It's a bit like the Anti Democrats Luddites who are in fact more of a lynch mob than a cheer squad for the Republicans much less the truth.

Perhaps you can explain how an executive of a corporation who has no substantial knowledge in the Long long list of specialised disciplines involved in the RESEARCH ( Hours days months up to their necks in conditions that you, me et al wouldn't do for what ? A pittance.) have you any idea how little a field researcher gets? Clearly not! Hint not the $90k or any number like it.

Think your argument through ...for every well paid professor there are 500 who live on very average wages. And almost as many that are over qualified cab drivers.
You have this absurd notion that academia isn't as cut throat , bitchy, longevity tenuous as exec in a corp hierarchy? If your corporation is that solely meritocratic ….I wonder if there's a local office I can join!
The Luddite assertion that they do it for research grants and a salubrious corp exec lifestyle all I can say is next time it rains is before you go out side with your umbrella read the instruction to ensure you have it up the correct way, don't forget your hanky, crayons and homework! ;)
PS I'm not a academic, I'm one of your lot an exec.
In fact I have a Double degree Daughter who currently earns 3 times what she did as a researcher working in the environmental staff of a mine.
I have a double degree son who is a Micro electrical engineer / Computer programmer/ project manager who is currently his companies super tech expert and get twice that he got as a researcher in a Uni.
My eldest gets more as a Snr teacher than she did in research
The middle son a qualified Structural draftsperson is a security officer as he has gon back to uni to get an environmental engineering qualification to earn less but in his words 'part of the solution not the problem'.

Examinator said...

Jon/ Chad,
Sorry to have been so heavy handed in my last post.
It's not that I'm intolerant of other's opinions, quite the contrary , in Chad's world I'd be a 'liberal' (sic).
What I have little time for is the nonsense of tactics/diversionary covering a neo-Ludditism. Tactics that are negative and seek to find a scapegoat in lieu of reason or facing the reality of demonstrable and provable facts. Especially when the arguments (sic) are both destructively (belittling) personal and specious.
Tactics that are in fact straight out of the propagandists hand book.
I have retrained/fired salespersons who relied on similar negative emotive techniques “polishing turds of consumerism”. Rather than address the clients' problems. The former are con-men (i.e. confidence tricksters).
Salespersons are PROBLEM solvers not hucksters. In context I was in the business of marketing mega minis and mainframe ( $100, 000 to multi million $) computers to large organizations etc. In this market one can't invent a need nor can one deny one. Most sales took months even over a year to achieve. Clearly there was a lot of analysis , project management, marshalling of resources, planning and effort. Turd polishing simply came back and bit you on the bum. You might with one sale but forget others. In that field the maxim that one happy client meant upto 5 potential new clients, one unhappy client meant 10 lost opportunities, was a fact of life.
To draw this into context of the AGW debate(sic) deniers ( the ignorant masses) and denialists ( the self serving myopic turd polishing puppet masters) are the hucksters. In effect they are saying to the (justifiably) frightened public the equivalent of smoke more cigarettes they keep people employed (pity about the 100 or so proven [mostly life detrimental] negative side effects.) “Feel the width ignore the quality.”
Oh yes Freedom of Choice! More utter Bull . In the case of AGW the choice isn't a matter of benign choice! It means those who choose to deny it are condemning the rest of us …. what about our rights to survive?
The arguments are specious at best. Supporting change won't crash the world economy it will simply move the capital to other areas …. this happened with the transition from gas lights to electricity and from typewriters to computers. No one is suggesting that at 1 minute past 12 tonight all polluting industries become illegal, so arguments of D&G, financial apocalypse are utter self serving hysterical BS.
So to widely suggested asinine notion that scientists/researchers fabricate results for some mythical 'research salubrious life style'.
Likewise so too is the Porky that industry funds all or even most research...they don't ! Neither do they pay anywhere near the real costs of the research from Universities etc. Consider the costs of grounds, facilities, support infrastructure, buildings. In truth they piggy back on the existing, even student fees and govt grants. If they had to “green fields” the cost would be much higher. In addition they pick up unpaid for basic institutional research for a comparative pittance.
Look at Spreadsheet invention, wi fi technology et al.
As for the Pharmaceutical/computer/chemical industry even GE food (seeds) well there are a series of tales of ripoffs and hucksterism at it's highest/ worst(?).

Jon said...

No need to apologize to me, Ex. The only thing to notice is that if you ask me I don't think Chad was saying that I'd sell the future of my children down the river for $90K. I suspect (though I'm not sure) that he just didn't read the article he linked to carefully. I suspect he thought it was the scientists that were being paid to say global warming was a problem.

It's happened several times on my blog. Chad provides a link but it turns out it supports my position rather than his. I've done the same thing so I don't want to pile on too much, but Chad you really do have to try and be more careful.