You supercilious, elitist, tinfoil hat wearing Mussolini you.

Sticks and stones will break my bones ......

Really Chris, you're far too charitable. I'm much more than you called me. I am the anti-Left incarnate. I am a religious haute-bourgeoisie, descended from one of Engels Non-Historic peoples. I'm too right wing to be fascist. You see for a mittle-european conservative like me, the Red Shirts are just as disgusting as the Brown Shirts. They have different political programs but what both of them have in common is the desire for unconstrained political power. Both sides of the political spectrum are prepared to suppress, ignore or obscure truth in order to gain political power. The political is more important than the factual, sound familiar? BTW does modern China look more similar to 1930's Germany or Russia? Think about that one.

You see, for you the purchase of the Obamamobile is a political statement in accordance with your views on "environmentalism". When I look at the Obamamobile, I see a more polluting alternative to the other options around. When I presented the facts which showed this was a more polluting vehicle, you ignored those facts by changing the argument. So from my perspective you preach environmental concerns while practicing the opposite when fully informed. You're not stupid and are fully able to comprehend evidence, so this behaviour is deliberately chosen. You are prepared to buy a more polluting car because your political views are more important than the truth of the matter. My party, right or wrong.

What this shows is:

a) The rational is subordinated to the political.(Bad ontological predicates)
b) You are prepared to inflict an evil on the environment as a result of your political ideology.(malice disguised as nobility)
c) What you say and what you do (when fully informed of the facts) are two different things.(dishonesty)

Is there an error in my logic?

Now when Hitler and Lenin rallied the troops, they did not lead them with the cry, "Lets set up a secret police state, intimidate our friends and slaughter all those who oppose me", no their battle cry was more modest, "Join us and your lot will improve". Many of the early Boshies were quite noble in their intent towards their fellow man. However once their political programme got implemented and industrial output declined precipitously, no it never occurred to them that it was their ideology that was at fault, no there must of been some sort of external factor that must have sabotaged their plans. That's why you see the early Bolshies were always on the lookout for counter revolutionaries,capitalists, foreign powers, secret orginisations; it never dawned upon the stupid ones that they were doing the damage and amongst the ones who could see what was going on they lusted for political power so much that they had to perpetuate the lie. But that didn't matter since the cause was important, they were on the side of the Angels. Now once you get into the habit of telling lies and doing whatever it takes to keep the cause alive, well the situation deteriorates quickly and all sorts of nasty things start happening.

Many Leftists have noble intentions for their fellow man. Now you see where You and JV differ is that JV hasn't completely drunk the Leftist Kool Aid and he still believes in the concept of the truth, he changes his mind on the basis of the evidence, the cause is more important than that for you.

Now it's true that you haven't set up a Gulag or secret police state but all the intellectual prerequisites are there. Once again, if you don't like the intellectual company you keep change your metaphysics. At the moment you and Eric Hobsbawn are fellow travelers. As you can see, no hatred, no venom just objectivity. Criticism is not invective.

Do you actually believe that votes should be weighted based on the subject matter of the vote and the presumed qualifications of the voter?

Yep, and so did the American Founding fathers. They knew that the Republic would stand or fall by the quality of its voters. Now I disagree with whom they did and did not allow to vote, but I do agree with the concept that only those who can manage their own affairs successfully should be be given the franchise. Those who can't manage their own affairs should have no say in mine.I'd also say that if your too rich I would ban you from voting as it shows bad moral character. Of course the Left opposes this, it's voting base is dependent on nipple of state maternalism. When you let morons vote, you get moronic presidents and public officials. Western Democracy since the 1960's has not been an edifying spectacle.

Posted by: slumlord on April 11, 2009 4:36 AM

Let's see if I have this straight. Donald offers a press release parody that skewers the Obama administration and the Democrats for actions not yet taken that would subsidize an automobile based on the Chevy Volt in the name of eliminating combustion pollution, which, given present means of electricity production, would actually cause more combustion pollution. The thread expands the scope of discussion to issues such as these:

• Should the American auto industry, which has gone into dramatic decline and faces the possibility of total collapse, have strings attached to taxpayer bailout include better fuel efficiency and lower pollution output?

• Are the emerging sustainable energy technologies an improvement over existing technologies? Do they hold the promise of becoming better given R&D support?

• Should the security costs and global political risks factors be considered as well as the technical/engineering data?

Arguments from those of us who support the development of alternatives to the gas engine are slammed with such irrefutable scientific proofs as, "absolutely nothing is 'infinitely sustainable.' Even the universe is scheduled to die one day."

My reference to recent developments out of M.I.T. that have resulted in improving lithium battery charge and discharge rates, which will have a significant impact on the viability of electric cars, is totally ignored. Of course, my sarcastic closing line is not.

Similarly, my recognition that diesel and diesel hybrids are excellent existing technologies that can and should be part of the mix is ignored. Perhaps it was ignored because I did not explicitly point out that slumlord offered a wiki quote to make the point and tied it to the use of biodiesel.

As things spiral out from the center we reach the issues of the advantages associated with oil and nuclear power (scientific measurement of efficiency) versus their disadvantages (pollution, nuclear waste storage, unstable and/or corrupt dictatorial regimes controlling resources, vulnerability of various points in the systems to terrorists).

And now we arrive at the notion that we'd all be better off if only those vetted by our righter than right-winged friend from Australia get to vote ... just like the Founding Fathers intended.

Posted by: Chris White on April 11, 2009 10:21 AM

JV,

If you are not the scientific type, you can watch the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that aired on BBC some time back.

LINK

You can also check out the Oregon Petition Project, where about 30,000 science types have openly stated that there is no correlation between CO2 levels and climate.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

Also, oil is not running out. Crude oil is continually being produced in the earth's mantle (as is natural gas) and migrating upward to the surface, contrary to what we the little folks have been told.

The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels (Paperback)by Thomas Gold (Author), Freeman Dyson

Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate the 21st Century Energy Economy (Paperback)by Peter Odell

Black Gold Stranglehold (Hardcover)by Jerome R. Corsi (Author), Craig R. Smith (Author)

Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy (Paperback)by Mark Jaccard (Author)

The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (Paperback)by Peter Huber (Author), Mark P. Mills (Author)

The Battle for Barrels: Peak Oil Myths & World Oil Futures (Hardcover)by Duncan Clarke (Author)

Also, here is a great article about California's unfolding energy debacle (see also some of the related articles):

LINK

I know its difficult to hear such contradictory information from what you've been told in the mainstream media, but at least you'll know the other side debate from these sources.

Thanks for hearing me out, JV. I just want the best situation for the most, and would like less pollution too. But I also want people to do well and be prosperous. I don't think that will happen if we go down the wrong road.

Posted by: B on April 11, 2009 1:14 PM

Chris,

The problem here is your "We gotta do something about it" mentality.

When people "gotta do something" about a perceived problem, they are as likely, or more likely, to do harm as they are to do good. This seems beyond your understanding. Government, in particular, is far more likely to do harm than good. The harm is almost always completely unforeseeable.

I actually have a technological education and a lifetime of working in technological fields -- computer science, IT, multimedia, computer programming and, now, nursing and medicine. I am far more skeptical about the curative power of technology than you are and, I hate to say it, I think that you know nothing about science and technology except what you read in the popular press.

I have much more confidence in the normal human ability to muddle along and to solve things spontaneously as needed than in grand designs for the future. Predicting the future is a fool's errand.

For example, every science fiction writer back in the 20s, 30s and 40s was entirely wrong about the direction computer technology would take. Every one of them saw giganticism as the solution to computational power. See Forbidden Planet, one of the great scifi movies for proof of this. Virtually nobody saw miniturization as the solution to computational power. Miniturization took the popular world completely by surprise.

We don't "gotta do something about it," when it comes to energy. We need to clear the air of the crisis hysteria and let ordinary human ingenuity and the desire to make a buck take their course. Humans, left alone to muddle through, will solve the purported (and largely fictional) energy crisis out of the normal human desire to get through the day, profit, screw around with things, etc.

Your grand plans are not the answer. Quit straining your brain over these things. You are wasting your time.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on April 11, 2009 2:46 PM

B,

"The great global warming swindle" may never have aired on BBC. Using google, I couldn't find credible evidence that it did.

It's also apparently a propaganda hack job. I watched it last week after seeing the link to it further up this thread. I know rather little about global warming science and I don't necessarily accept its truth just because it is the majority view in the field. But, if you read the wikipedia entry on the movie, you'll find that the orthodoxy has responses to most of the major points the movie raises - responses which are intelligible if not necessarily correct (I wouldn't know). The real sin of the movie is to give the impression that these points are unanswered.

However, even though it is propaganda, one can still learn from it. I'd say it's worth watching if you read the wikipedia entry on it afterward.

EXAMPLES:

- The movie shows data suggesting that temperatures in the last century were caused by solar variation. Orthodox sources say the putative correlation was much uglier for data starting in the 1980s, but that the movie didn't present data from the 80s onward.

- The movie goes on and on about the cooling experienced in the middle decades of the 20th century, without ever mentioning the theory that industrial particulates in the atmosphere (now no longer emitted so voluminously) were responsible for that cooling. Poor form indeed! The latter theory is claimed to be widely-accepted, in the wikipedia entry on the movie. True or not, it obviously bears mentioning.

- The movie gives paleoclimate data from ice cores, which show excellent correlation between temperature and CO2 levels, but suggests that CO2 levels tend to lead temperature by a few centuries, suggesting unidirectional causation from temperature to CO2. The wikipedia entry on the movie suggests bidirectional causation could be involved, and that causation from CO2 to temp might still dominate the other direction of causation. I imagine this disagreement could be very difficult to resolve, and I have no opinion.

Posted by: Eric J. Johnson on April 11, 2009 3:17 PM

Nice try at looking smart, but still no cigar.

You really are hopeless, B. I was disagreeing with a specific point you made about energy simply changing form. I explicitly stated I agreed with your broad set of points that we are not running out of energy and have many many sources of energy available. I even went so far explicitly again to distinguish my point about entropy from the likes of Jeremy Rifkin.

None of this has had any effect on you. You clearly do not know how to read any more than you know how to write. You made an incorrect statement about the conservation of energy, giving your opponents an opening (JV picked up on your error immediately). The misstatement of yours was not only not essential to your point, the fact that it was wrong weakened your argument.

I pointed out your error, making it abundantly clear that was the point of my disagreement with you. None of your bloviating pompous passive-aggressive adolescent responses have shown any recognition of what I said to you, nor have you demonstrated the intellectual integrity to recognize your mistake and retract it.

You seem immature, B. You've alienated a potential ally in your disputes with the likes of the egregious Chris White with your needless defensive evasions of responsibility for your ridiculous exaggerations. You keep overreaching like this, and it won't be too long before your opponents, who don't have a scientific leg to stand on, will jump all over your blunders and overstatements, and you will have succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

You won't be able to say you weren't warned. But I will warn you anyway: grow up, calm down your rhetoric, and stick to science. Otherwise you'll get your adolescent arse dialectically kicked good and hard. You're sloppy, overwrought, and you swing so wide that you leave your chin open to a quick uppercut riposte. JV was gentle with you, so you've dodged the uppercut this time, but others here won't be.

So grow up, B. If you don't, you'll just hurt the side of the argument you think you're helping.

Posted by: PatrickH on April 11, 2009 3:55 PM

We have become a world of specialists, as another thread on colleges and education, not to mention those on banking, shows. Experts and specialists have been running things for quite some time now. From where I sit experts and specialists haven't proven particularly reliable or adept. So, I freely admit that I am not an auto designer, electrical engineer, or nuclear physicist. So what?

When people "gotta do something" about a perceived problem, they are more likely ... to do harm as ... good. This seems beyond your understanding. Government, in particular, is far more likely to do harm than good. The harm is almost always completely unforeseeable.

Far from being beyond my understanding, this is an area where we agree in principal, even if we disagree on the practical implications of the concept. To me harm is most closely associated with scale - the larger the scale of the enterprise, the greater the possibility for harm. This is as true for the private sector as it is for government. Furthermore, my understanding of the role of government, both ideally and pragmatically, is probably somewhat different.

Ideally government protects the rights of its citizens and expresses their will through various means, including legislation, tax policy, regulatory agencies, and so on. Pragmatically, here in the US we have a Duopoly, with a revolving door between global scale industries, their lobbyists, and various elected and appointed government officials. The scary thing is, despite being far from ideal, it remains one of the better systems out there. The perverse aspect of all of this remains that we require a governmental scale capable of setting rules and acting as referee for global industries. The only way to shrink the size of government is to shrink the scale of the private sector entities the government must govern. I'd love to see both, but I'm not holding my breath.

Bringing this discussion back to the beginning, we have one set of experts who claim AGW due in large part to accelerating fossil fuel emission, especially CO2, over a century. Another set of experts says that's a load of crap, it's connected to solar activity cycles, if it's happening at all. Experts claim that between light, strong, new component body construction materials and advanced battery technology a viable electric car is right around the corner. Other experts say it'll never happen.

The one thing you can be sure of with experts is whatever you hear one of them say, there's another expert who violently disagrees with them. So then we look for consensus among a large group of experts. Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. There's a long-standing consensus that accepts the basic concepts of evolution. There are factions and schisms and heretics and disbelievers associated with evolution.

As noted, I'm agnostic about the "A" in AGW, but find the consensus is plausible. Given that, it makes sense to move toward lowering our CO2 output. Increasing efficiency and developing non-fossil fuel energy sources for transportation can have great impact. Electric cars, whether hybrid or not, with advanced battery technology, can provide part of that solution. Encouraging the first generation of production line vehicles to accelerate their development makes sense to me.

It also makes sense to me that, smaller scale, localized, everything is generally preferable to global scale anything. Actually, optimums need to be found. Economy of scale works for a while then begins to acquire too many negatives to justify the positives.

In any case, in my view the more we can do to develop small, decentralized, energy production as well, the better. Anecdotally, I've known a number of folks generating power with wind or solar and tied into the grid. The more of that there is, the better for all of us.

Posted by: Chris White on April 11, 2009 7:16 PM

PatrickH,

None of this has had any effect on you. You clearly do not know how to read any more than you know how to write. You made an incorrect statement about the conservation of energy

I said that energy does not get "used up", but merely changes forms. That is a correct statement in a closed or open system. Energy is conserved in all systems. So is matter. In a closed system, total energy is merely constant. If you have any kind of scientific evidence that proves otherwise, then post it. Otherwise, shut up with the insults.

We are clearly not running out of energy, and anybody who thinks that we are is simply ignorant.

Eric Johnson,

The movie gives paleoclimate data from ice cores, which show excellent correlation between temperature and CO2 levels, but suggests that CO2 levels tend to lead temperature by a few centuries, suggesting unidirectional causation from temperature to CO2.

The ice cores show excellent correlation between temperature and CO2 levels. Unfortunately, temperatures go up before CO2 levels. So unless the laws of the universe have turned upside down, and cause and effect have switched places, that means that temperature drives CO2 levels, not the other way around. And when CO2 levels were increased a great deal in the 20th century because of burning hydrocarbons, the correlation between CO2 and temperature breaks down, also indicating that its not CO2 that changes anything, but temperature that does.

In other words, temperature is the independent variable (independent of CO2 levels) and CO2 is the dependent variable (dependent on temperature). You should have learned how to read graphs in high school. If you can't tell the difference between independent and dependent variables, I suggest you take a basic algebra review course. I also suggest you re-learn the relationship of cause and effect, since the law of causality seems unfamiliar to you.

You two are the best examples that I can think of as to why we need an intensive science curriculum in schools. Ramble on in the darkness if you like. It's our future if people who know so little are left to support the "green" nonsense that is being rammed down our throats.

Posted by: B on April 13, 2009 8:46 PM

"I said that energy does not get "used up", but merely changes forms. That is a correct statement in a closed or open system. Energy is conserved in all systems. So is matter. In a closed system, total energy is merely constant. If you have any kind of scientific evidence that proves otherwise, then post it. Otherwise, shut up with the insults."

B, you're a recent college graduate, am I right? You are theoretically correct in the statement above, but what does that have to do with how we access and harness energy sources? Zero. As I stated, of course there's always energy out there in the universe, including our waste products, which are simply energy in another, and here's the kicker, CURRENTLY UNUSABLE, form. But I ask again, how does that inform our debate. I'll answer that. It doesn't, unless you're proposing we invest in R&D to find ways to harness that energy. Which I'm not against.

Posted by: JV on April 13, 2009 11:30 PM






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