I just heard a discussion on the radio where a clever man was telling us how we will soon be able to buy loads of new products to help us be greener, generate electricity etc. These will be generators, boilers, turbines, etc.
Some people may disagree with me... but I think global warming is made up. It doesn't exist. It's not true. It's just been created so that we all have to buy this new stuff from clever men.
I think it's happening but not on the apocalyptic scale we are told. For example, more Methane, a greenhouse gas, is produced naturally by wetlands than any other source. It's a natural phenomenon.
Well, it's definitely happening. (Although to be precise, it's 'climate change', not 'global warming'.) WJFK is right though, some of what we're experiencing is entirely natural, a good example of which he gives. It's always worried me a bit that we only have a finite amount of coal, oil and whathaveyou, yet we seem to be using it all as if there's some magic infinite supply.
Anyway, I diverse. Point is, I too think it's talked up a bit, and there is a lot which is nothing to do with us. It's definitely happening though. Just look at the rising average temperatures year on year for example. And I don't think anyone living remembers the last time the Thames froze over in London.
Besides, I like the thought of being able to make my own electricity and such, not having to rely on others and pay extortionate bills to power companies.
And if it was all made up so that "we all have to buy this new stuff from clever men", the "new stuff" would actually be available, and available at a sane price.
Sorry folks, but look at the history of the earth. Several billion years old, and your taking a sample from the last 50 years. Hardly any use as an accurate gauge. I believe it works out to a sample time period of approx. 0.0000000125%
i'm sorry aaron but i just don't believe you. it's like all the other things - bird flu, year 2000 bug, digital tv (what was wrong with analogue?) etc. they are designed to make chumps like me pay money in one way or another.
i'm not being fooled by this one.
The easiest argument against global warming as it's presented in the media is that the world is a closed system. No significant new carbon is being added or created. The total amount of carbon on the planet has remained the same but the amounts available to life and the atmosphere can and does vary.
In the past (carboniferous etc) there was a lot more free carbon in the system, more trees, more oxygen, bigger bugs. But now a lot of the carbon that was available in the past is locked up in fossil fuels. All we're doing is releasing carbon that was once in the cycle back into the atmosphere and back into the life cycle.
The planet survived before. And it will survive again. Whether mankind will be there is a different argument that isn't dependent on the amount of carbon in the life cycle.
Yes, there will be weather pattern disruption as the systems adjust and these won't help man or wildlife. Yes, it makes economic and ecological sense to limit fuel use. But Earth becoming a super-hot lifeless ball? Not so but it is a useful fairy tale dressed up in scientific jargon to progress short-term political aims rather than real long-term sustainability - which is what we really need.
Pure science, interested in truth rather than seeking 'proof', is good. But science can also be a manipulated (and manipulative) ideology just as dangerous and as cold as any political movement. When you don't believe a politician, the politician wheels in a scientist to back him up and then we begin to take it seriously. But just because a man wears a white lab coat doesn't mean he doesn't pay lip service to the man who pays the department grant, and it doesn't mean he can't lie or be mistaken.
Science is imo the new religion. Uniformed and revered men locked away in antiseptic strange closed-off buidings, performing weird and secret rituals, speaking in hard-to-decipher jargon as they preach enthusiastically (or otherwise) about a future that we'll never see: they are the new illuminated ones with closed minds, as busy debunking and mocking others as they are to offer their own fragile proofs, less concerned with truth than perpetuating their own particular brand of belief system.
Suddenly I know what Morrisey meant. 
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 2:41 PMYes, there will be weather pattern disruption as the systems adjust and these won't help man or wildlife. Yes, it makes economic and ecological sense to limit fuel use. But Earth becoming a super-hot lifeless ball? Not so but it is a useful fairy tale dressed up in scientific jargon to progress short-term political aims rather than real long-term sustainability - which is what we really need.
How is distmantling or reconfiguring industries fulfilling 'short-term political aims'? The proposals of the environmental campaign will greatly impair politicans and academics alike. Yes, they may be mistaken in their graver concerns, but let's not peddle sinister conspiracy theories or we'll drag ourselves kicking and screaming back through the enlightenment.
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 2:41 PMScience is imo the new religion. Uniformed and revered men locked away in antiseptic strange closed-off buidings, performing weird and secret rituals, speaking in hard-to-decipher jargon as they preach enthusiastically (or otherwise) about a future that we'll never see: they are the new illuminated ones with closed minds, as busy debunking and mocking others as they are to offer their own fragile proofs, less concerned with truth than perpetuating their own particular brand of belief system.
Unfortunately their 'belief system' is empirical evidence, and it is their evidence which debunks the fallacies and myths that others choose to accept. Scientific ideas are regularly proved to be false themselves, but is because they are open minded that they continue to explore and experiment rather than adhering to ancient dogma.
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 2:41 PMBut just because a man wears a white lab coat doesn't mean he doesn't pay lip service to the man who pays the department grant, and it doesn't mean he can't lie or be mistaken.
That's not claimed, it's just generally accepted that if you want somebody to talk about science then you go to a scientist. I don't imagine that your doctor is perfect, but if you had a stomach complaint then you wouldn't go to an electrician.
alright i'll buy your bloody turbines! where do i send my cheque?
Just add your account no. to www.mybankdetails.com
You're safe with us!
(I speak as a c student in science, I'm not Richard Dawkins under the cunning alias of a spice.)
Quote: johnny roulette @ December 6, 2007, 3:55 PMalright i'll buy your bloody turbines! where do i send my cheque?
You'll run it on electricity, I gather?
i will buy foreign children and tie them to little bikes.
but yes, the turnbines will run on electricity.
Does anyone realise that those scientific bastards were just fooling us when they said that arsenic caused death? All that they were trying to do was deny us its sweet, life-giving essence for their own short-term political ends.
Quote: johnny roulette @ December 6, 2007, 1:27 PMi'm sorry aaron but i just don't believe you. it's like all the other things - bird flu, year 2000 bug, digital tv (what was wrong with analogue?) etc. they are designed to make chumps like me pay money in one way or another.
i'm not being fooled by this one.
Not quite sure what you don't believe. That the Thames hasn't frozen recently? That temperatures rise?
Anyway. The 'Y2K bug' was a legitimate problem. Luckily for "chumps like you" it was sorted out. And there's nothing specifically wrong with analogue TV, but digital offers far more, far cheaper.
Whatever the case, I'm not sure how any of the above (save perhaps digital TV, £20 right now for a set-top box) are or have made you pay more money.
Now the Olympics, that's another matter.
Quote: Aaron @ December 6, 2007, 6:52 PMAnyway. The 'Y2K bug' was a legitimate problem. Luckily for "chumps like you" it was sorted out.
Sure you got an unbiased opinion on that one Aaron 
Y2K my ASS