Prepare to panic (again)

[kathyp]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479

the oceans are dying, the oceans are dying!!!!!!!!!

[Shanevrr]

yes we are stupid,  sad to say

[AllenF]

You can't fix stupid,  that's sad to say

[mushmushi]

Well, to anybody with basic science education, this is not a surprise.

Ask any geologist, climatologist or marine biologist, climate change is happening.

The details being discussed now are not if it is going to happen, but how much the sea levels might rise, how much the oceans are going to acidify (due to a higher absorption) and how is this going to impact us. (read the USA army reports on this issue; they estimate a lot more Mexicans migrating)

For sure, to simple folks, global change might be just a belief or simply another attack to the big businesses or their faith in Jesus.

Science is not politics; however your country sure likes to politicize it.

Ocean acidification will happen whatever your whole state believes it or not. Just the way the sun will rise tomorrow and the day after. (its pH decreased from 8.25% to 8.14%; ~29% increase since pH scale is logarithmic).

There are already fishes who are having problems reproducing because of the acidity increase.

Perhaps if your government would not (yet again) debate evolution vs "retarded design" in the courtrooms but funded science in schools instead, we would not be in this situation.

[kathyp]

Science is not politics; however your country sure likes to politicize it.

of course it is.  look at the UN and what they did with the climate change panel.  it was all politics.  take from rich countries, give to poor countries, same old stuff.

if any of the scientist that were screaming the same tune when i was young had been correct, we'd already be dead from something...most notably the ice age that as supposed to be here by now, but there were other assorted impending disasters. 

this is not new.  same old stuff.  and...as someone pointed out, follow the money.

you don't like this country and what we do?  fine with me.  may i point out that if you had to be responsible for protecting your own land, your lovely social welfare programs might go out the window.  if we go down and you can't export to us, your lovely social welfare state might be hard to support.  just a thought.....

every been here?

[mushmushi]

of course it is.  look at the UN and what they did with the climate change panel.  it was all politics.  take from rich countries, give to poor countries, same old stuff.

The poor countries need the technology to reduce their carbon footprint. Right now, China is investing a lot more than anybody else combined in order to address these issues.

if any of the scientist that were screaming the same tune when i was young had been correct, we'd already be dead from something...most notably the ice age that as supposed to be here by now, but there were other assorted impending disasters. 

When was this ice age scare? Did your local priest come out with this ?

this is not new.  same old stuff.  and...as someone pointed out, follow the money.

Yeah sure. Every scientist out there is paid by the communists to lie and make up numbers to scare us

you don't like this country and what we do?  fine with me.  may i point out that if you had to be responsible for protecting your own land, your lovely social welfare programs might go out the window.  if we go down and you can't export to us, your lovely social welfare state might be hard to support.  just a thought.....

Correction. I do not like your international politics.
Protecting your land is a long term investment and worth being conservationist about. If only we could include the cost of environmental damage in gas/oil, I'm pretty sure public transit would be top notch right now.

I don't mind paying taxes to support my lovely social welfare. The higher the taxes, the happier I am since it means I'm pretty successful.

every been here?

Yes. Lovely country, bleep politics. I particularly enjoyed Arizona and California.


"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all... I personally resent it bitterly."

-Isaac Asimov

[kathyp]

When was this ice age scare? Did your local priest come out with this ?

it was the 70's and it was my science teacher and http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

Correction. I do not like your international politics.
Protecting your land is a long term investment and worth being conservationist about. If only we could include the cost of environmental damage in gas/oil, I'm pretty sure public transit would be top notch right now.

I don't mind paying taxes to support my lovely social welfare. The higher the taxes, the happier I am since it means I'm pretty successful.

and if that's what you want to do, that's fine.  unlike you, i don't feel the need to dictate to others what they should do.  it's not my business how your country is run except to use it as and example of things we don't want.  it's not your business how mine is run.

you have a problem with religion?  also fine with me.  again, mine, if i have one, is none of your business.  isn't it funny that the "tolerant" left is so intolerant when it comes to things like religion and politics....oh wait, it's only Christianity that sets them off.  any other religion is to be "tolerated"!  that's ok.  it's good to be reminded of what drives libs.

[mushmushi]

When was this ice age scare? Did your local priest come out with this ?

it was the 70's and it was my science teacher and http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

Correction. I do not like your international politics.
Protecting your land is a long term investment and worth being conservationist about. If only we could include the cost of environmental damage in gas/oil, I'm pretty sure public transit would be top notch right now.

I don't mind paying taxes to support my lovely social welfare. The higher the taxes, the happier I am since it means I'm pretty successful.

and if that's what you want to do, that's fine.  unlike you, i don't feel the need to dictate to others what they should do.  it's not my business how your country is run except to use it as and example of things we don't want.  it's not your business how mine is run.

you have a problem with religion?  also fine with me.  again, mine, if i have one, is none of your business.  isn't it funny that the "tolerant" left is so intolerant when it comes to things like religion and politics....oh wait, it's only Christianity that sets them off.  any other religion is to be "tolerated"!  that's ok.  it's good to be reminded of what drives libs.

You build on what others have built before you.
Education, transportation and healthcare should be the basics of any modern civilized society.

Religion, as a personal belief, is more than fine. Using religion to impose your fruit-loops beliefs in politics, very bad.
No, not only Christianity. Any other one will do fine as well.

[BlueBee]

Kathy that was an interesting Time articles.  Kudos for pulling that one up! 

I tend to agree with Mush that the current data suggests the earth is warming, but is that due to CO2 or the output of the Sun or cows farts or other transient effects?  We really don’t have enough thermodynamic data to say for sure why the earth is warming.  It would have been nice if Bush had not canceled Gore-sat. 

Who says what temp the earth must be?  Look at the geological record, the earth’s climate has been all over the place!  From gators near the poles to the “snowball earth”.  Change is part of life, we can’t control everything.

You build on what others have built before you.
Education, transportation and healthcare should be the basics of any modern civilized society.

Agreed 100%

[bee-nuts]

mass extinctions are common place in the history of this planet.  Like varroa on the bee, man on earth will come to a breaking point some day so dont worry.  Disease and starvation will cleanse the earth of our overpopulation eventually and the land will once again be overgrown by plant, insect, and other life.  The sooner 99+ % of humans are wiped of this earth the better.  Maybe real freedom may exist fro a short period of time again.

[indypartridge]

The sooner 99+ % of humans are wiped of this earth the better.

Are you volunteering? Dr Kervorkian is gone, but you can find plenty of info at the Hemlock Society.

[kathyp]

Kathy that was an interesting Time articles.  Kudos for pulling that one up! 

i am that old 

you all play nice while i am gone.  save some fun for when i get back 

[kathyp]

You build on what others have built before you.
Education, transportation and health care should be the basics of any modern civilized society.

i don't disagree with you, but show me a society that built anything by making a large portion of it's people dependent.  building is done by work.  while i agree that the things you list, and others, are the hallmark of modern civilization, i do not agree that it logical follow that everything should be free.  you can work to have the best, or you can work to make free mediocre services that will get everyone by, but never become great. 

mush should also remember that he come from a small country (number of people) and they are struggling to provide what has been promised at the level that people expect.  same with england and they have only a fraction of our population.   

i will be the first to agree that we need to fix how we pay for health care.  what we do not need to do is follow the failing ideas of Europe and Europe lite into more debt and default that we already face.

[Scadsobees]

I'm really amazed when people who have no religion are so quick to point out what is right? And the vitriol behind it!

Really...in the cosmic reality of things, in an imagined universe where everything is just random bits floating around, what would it matter we invented the Death Star and just started vaporizing the entire galaxy?  Nothing!  No right, no wrong.  If I extinguish my spark or yours, it doesn't matter.  Nothing matters.  We live for cosmically brief period of time, and then nothing.

Really, why do you care?  Just to save this giant orb (cosmically puny) of random bits?  For what?  Not for humans if 99+ percent of people are gone. 

I watched Avatar...and I can really see how unthinking yet proclaiming to be logical people can be sucked right into the mysticism and religion that they built there and somehow imagine that that could be earth.

[mushmushi]

I'm really amazed when people who have no religion are so quick to point out what is right? And the vitriol behind it!

Really...in the cosmic reality of things, in an imagined universe where everything is just random bits floating around, what would it matter we invented the Death Star and just started vaporizing the entire galaxy?  Nothing!  No right, no wrong.  If I extinguish my spark or yours, it doesn't matter.  Nothing matters.  We live for cosmically brief period of time, and then nothing.

Really, why do you care?  Just to save this giant orb (cosmically puny) of random bits?  For what?  Not for humans if 99+ percent of people are gone. 

I watched Avatar...and I can really see how unthinking yet proclaiming to be logical people can be sucked right into the mysticism and religion that they built there and somehow imagine that that could be earth.
[/quote]

No vitriol. Your personal beliefs are no problem to me. But:
* Keep religion in your own house.
* Don't bring it into politics and the work environment.
* Don't knock on my door trying to save me.
* Respect the other beliefs (other religions, atheists, agnostics)
* Basically, don't impose it on others (burka, kirpan, crosses in public schools, etc)

Why do I "care" ? My own reasons.

Surprise surprise, non religious people do not kill others or do not behave in an egoistical fashion any more than religious ones do.

Some good statistics, from Texas incarceration rates:  (seems to me like religion does not make one "care" more )

Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 1999

Source: Peggy Fikac. "More prison inmates say they're Baptist than any other religion." Associated Press (The Abilene Reporter-News)
Baptist     39,781   30.3%
Unknown*    28,890   22.0%   <---- classified functionally in the "nonreligious" category.
Catholic    23,637   18.0%
Other       39,009   29.7%   <---  Christian Church, Methodist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Muslim, Protestant, Jewish, non-denominational, no religious preference and other."
--------   -------  ------
Total      131,316  100.0%
* Unknown: "22 percent are categorized as 'unknown,' representing inmates who didn't say or didn't care when asked for their religious denomination." Most of these would be classified functionally in the "nonreligious" category.

* Other: "The rest of the inmates are divided among the categories of Christian Church, Methodist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Muslim, Protestant, Jewish, non-denominational, no religious preference and other."

You talk about openness, yet most closed-minded people that I've talked to are the religious ones that cannot entertain the thought that there are other beliefs out there.

[bee-nuts]

"Are you volunteering? Dr Kervorkian is gone, but you can find plenty of info at the Hemlock Society."

Im not human.

[Scadsobees]

...

Hmm...I was just reviewing on of your original postings, and your last one.  Link should be there, no need for the whole quote.

They're all the same...every arguement throw out lines and accusations with no data, call people names, try to shame them by calling the opponent "simple" and mocking their beliefs and broadly appealing the the superiority of science, then stand back with a smug air of superiority and say how they would never do those things and how they just want everybody to get along.

And all during a debate about facts, of which there are so many that support and just as many that don't support.

Any time somebody says "the science is settled, the facts are in, the debate is over" it is a good clue that it ISN'T.  Giant theories involving so many things such as evolution and climate science are so huge and have so many inputs and outputs and so unrepeatable that they will NEVER be settled.  Anybody who says otherwise is deluded or has some other agenda.

[kingbee]

... Religion, as a personal belief, is more than fine. Using religion to

impose your fruit-loops beliefs in politics, very bad. No, not only Christianity. Any other one will do fine as well.

Excuse my insight, but aren't you attempting to impose the First Environmentalism Church on politics?