Climate Denialism paid by Exxon

[Vylo]

And an example of a human lifestyle that didnt, according to you, hurt or kill people would be what? Humans require energy, they produce waste, your argument seems to be with reality, not me.

There is none, at least if you believe in conflict theory, which I certainly do .

The goal is to minimize the damage. Like I said before, it is quite easy to actually do more damage by trying to eliminate the problem.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because we are not willing to live in a totalitarian state based simply on the word of a few scientist who are becoming rich off of promoting AGW.

You have a very broad, almost meaningless, definition of what counts as a 'totalitarian state'.

 

[eclipsenow]

What is wrong with relinquishing increasing portions of our income and increasing portions of our freedom in a quest to save the planet from the effects of a gas we discharge every time we breath? With all due respect, if you have to ask that question, you probably won't understand the answer.

I'd love you to explain to me how fossil fuels = freedom when America is currently enslaved to burning 25% of the world's oil when you only have 5% of the people, and are the nation most vulnerable to high oil prices. Condemning your generation to paying $6 trillion a decade to overseas countries that don't like you very much, and future generations to paying maybe double or even triple that as peak oil hits? Yeah, great definitions of freedom.

Have you ever read that it can take 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to grow just 1 calorie of food energy? Do you know how dependent your country is on oil for food? Oil is about to peak and then go into permanent decline. Someone will be pumping it somewhere in 100 years, but it will stop being the lifeblood of the modern world long before then. What's going to replace it?

This isn't just about clean energy from a climate perspective, but whether you have enough energy. American oil peaked 40 years ago, which is why instead of exporting it as you did prior to WW2, you are now the world's largest importer of oil. How's that helping your economy? Doesn't sending $6 trillion a decade overseas just make you want to ...

"Render unto Caesar” was not a command from Jesus to pay whatever taxes a government body saw fit to levy. Jesus was being asked if it was lawful to pay taxes, with the specific tax in question being the annual tribute tax to Rome. Jews who opposed Roman authority opposed this tax while Jews within the Temple authority endorsed it. The question was an attempt to trick Jesus into choosing sides. In addition, for your comment to be true one would have to completely disregard what type of government may exist. Republic, Communists Dictatorship, Fascist state, Apartheid, whatever, just shut up and pay.

As for "the authorities" being "God's servants to do us good", you may want to remember Ephesians 6:12.

12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Fail! This is about primarily spiritual stuff. If you read the Old Testament through to the New Testament themes on government and 'this world', only stuff that is 'worldy' is actively hostile to God and to be resisted with patient endurance. The same Roman government that Paul described as God's servant to do us good later become BEASTS, persecutors of God's people in the book of Revelation. It is simplistic in the extreme, and a little dangerous and dishonest, to try and cast the Christian's role as ALWAYS resisting all governments based on Ephesians 6:12.

I mean, we are servants of society. Even the salves are exhorted to be good slaves, not to resist their slavery (AS YOU appear to recommend!) As Ephesians 6 says just a little earlier...

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

How on earth does THAT square with your 'resist all governments all the time' kind of attitude based on the samechapter a little later on? Reading Ephesians 6 as 'our struggle is ALWAYS against GOVERNMENTS!!' is justsurreal, and does not square with Romans 13 and Jesus commands to pay the tax, YES, to an enemy government!

If your government puts a price on carbon to switch to cleaner and more SECURE energy sources, then it is your Christian duty to pay this government, especially as they are democratically elected. You'll have even MORE reason to pay them as they are even MORE your servants to do you good — especially in America where freedom of religion is a legal right. That is SO far from the Beasts we read of in the bible that your attempts to colour a little carbon tax as Satanic are just laughable.

Brother, you need to read Romans 13 again and ... repent.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

In the case of murder, there is a victim and an assailant. The actions of the assailant are measurable, quantifiable, and provable. If I kill you, there is a direct link between my actions and your injury/death. Can you make the same linkage between my driving to work, say, and demonstrable harm to you, your property or even the global environment? Of course not. My individual actions, even over the course of my entire lifetime, have no impact whatsoever on future sea levels or temperature fluctuations. Since my actions cannot be shown to harm anyone, then the state has no role in regulating those actions. I am not a servant and the state my master, I am a free man with rights that the state is bound by law to secure. If I am not violating the rights of another, then the state has no authority to regulate my behavior.

At first you claim that AGW may be true. You concede it is not your area of expertise. Now you are saying 'My individual actions, even over the course of my entire lifetime, have no impact whatsoever on future sea levels or temperature fluctuations.' It would seem that these statements are inconsistent, for if you allow for the possibility of AGW, then you do indeed allow for the possibility of your actions having such an impact. And if your actions do have such an impact, and if that impact is magnified by everyone else's actions also, then you can certainly see how there is a need to regulate, and the cost of not regulating would be far worse.

The trouble is, I am a free man living in (ostensibly) a free country. What gives you the authority to compel my obedience to your will on this matter? If you wish to reduce your emissions, go right ahead. If you and every other human voluntarily goes along with your "fix" it wont matter what I do will it.

Your solution, just like every solution from the left to every perceived 'problem,' involves forced compliance to your commands. So grave is this problem that only a global despotism can save us. Sorry, I would rather be free.

You do not accept the proposed solution because you haven't fully grasped the problem. It is like the tragedy of the commons. What good will it do if one individual reduces their emissions voluntarily, while you (for example) continue to emit at ever higher rates, blissfully ignoring all warning? One man has sacrificed some measure of profit so that everyone can benefit, while you have taken his disadvantage to out-compete him while externalising the costs to the community.

A call for tyranny if ever there was one.

The Soviets had a "stable society" so do the North Koreans. A "stable society" is not the objective. A free society is.

A call for anarchy if ever there was one.

 

[eclipsenow]

At first you claim that AGW may be true. You concede it is not your area of expertise. Now you are saying 'My individual actions, even over the course of my entire lifetime, have no impact whatsoever on future sea levels or temperature fluctuations.' It would seem that these statements are inconsistent, for if you allow for the possibility of AGW, then you do indeed allow for the possibility of your actions having such an impact. And if your actions do have such an impact, and if that impact is magnified by everyone else's actions also, then you can certainly see how there is a need to regulate, and the cost of not regulating would be far worse.

Well articulated!

You do not accept the proposed solution because you haven't fully grasped the problem. It is like the tragedy of the commons. What good will it do if one individual reduces their emissions voluntarily, while you (for example) continue to emit at ever higher rates, blissfully ignoring all warning? One man has sacrificed some measure of profit so that everyone can benefit, while you have taken his disadvantage to out-compete him while externalising the costs to the community.

Agree again!

A call for tyranny if ever there was one.

The Soviets had a "stable society" so do the North Koreans. A "stable society" is not the objective. A free society is.

A call for anarchy if ever there was one.

Well, I see what you're saying in your rebuttal, but isn't there another issue here? The issue is the false dichotomy we are presented with; it's his definition of 'freedom' or 'stability'. Can't we have both? I'm fairly Centrist in my politics. I'm into Social Liberalism: "Civil rights, Social Justice and State funded welfare in a Market Economy". It works. It's what we have here in Australia, and we have nearly universal health cover (for serious ailments) at about half the per capita cost of the highly wasteful American health system.

But that's not the point. Social Liberalism is a big enough umbrella to include many European countries as well as Australia. We're free. We can start our own businesses and pretty much live and work where we want to. Indeed, if working where you want to is part of the definition of freedom, we're 'free-er' than Americans simply because we have a lower unemployment rate!

Fossil fuels are going to run out one day. Peak oil is not far off, and that will mean moving from an era of ever increasing supplies of cheap oil to ever decreasing supplies of vastly more expensive oil. The markets have not prepared in time. They have failed to anticipate this, because the price of oil only starts rising after the peak. But by then it is too late. Energy projects take decades to deploy.

So, given America is the most oil exposed economy in the world, I'm STILL waiting for a Denialist to come in and explain how America is 'free-er' while in bondage to international oil prices, and how it is in America's interest and helps with their 'freedom' to keep funding people who don't like you very much to the tune of $600 billion dollars a year wasted in buying overseas oil.

Go ahead Denialists. Work your magic. If I hear one more cliched boring reply that any alternative is Totalitarian, I'm going to call it the un-thinking horse manure that it is. How are you going to prepare for peak oil? It's coming. Fast. The markets have failed. What is your recommendation for securing a reliable, sustainable, clean energy future that will power not only your generation but all generations of Americans to come?

 

[USincognito]

Here is my take on global warming, FWIW. Is the climate changing? Sure, it is always changing and would be changing if man were not even around. Is the change we are seeing caused by man? I am not a scientist, so I have no idea. But I do not rule out the possibility that the activities of 6 billion people may have an impact. For me, the question is: Does the state have the authority to to limit, regulate or alter my behavior to address the "problem?" The answer to that is no.

Those of you convinced that humans are having a negative impact on the climate are free to alter your own personal behavior as you see fit. You have no authority to compel me to alter mine; and, by extension, neither does the state on your behalf.

Tragedy of the Commons for the win!

 

[USincognito]

Because we are not willing to live in a totalitarian state based simply on the word of a few scientist who are becoming rich off of promoting AGW.

Politically based fear mongering? Check!
Appeal to conspiracy theory? Check!
Diminuation of the science behind AGW? Check!
Appeal to the mythical "scientists becoming rich of promoting AGW? Check!

So much denialism in one sentence! You should get a job at Heartland Institute.

 

[USincognito]

Good thing man was blessed with reason.

True. Now if only more people would use it.

 

[eclipsenow]

Politically based fear mongering? Check!
Appeal to conspiracy theory? Check!
Diminuation of the science behind AGW? Check!
Appeal to the mythical "scientists becoming rich of promoting AGW? Check!

So much denialism in one sentence! You should get a job at Heartland Institute.

Ha ha ha! Awesome!

 

[eclipsenow]

This is the same argument used by any greedy corporation that just wants to dump toxic lead or asbestos or even radioactive waste in the river! Who is the State to tell us what to do, to limit their profits?

False. It is not the same argument at all.

The science of global warming says it is. W.H.O estimates 200 thousand people a year already die from global warming. And it's going to get worse.

What gives you the right to live a lifestyle that KILLS other people?

Who has my lifestyle killed.

Read the WHO report. In 2000 it was only 150 thousand people a year. Now it's closer to 200k. It's getting worse.

Measurement of health effects from climate change can only be very approximate. Nevertheless, a WHO quantitative assessment, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, concluded that the effects of the climate change that has occurred since the mid-1970s may have caused over 150,000 deaths in 2000. It also concluded that these impacts are likely to increase in the future.

WHO | Climate and health

But I'm glad that — by your silence —[bless and do not curse]that you have conceded that:-
* Current town planners already 'control' you by dictating that suburbia is the town plan dominating the market.
* that you have no plan for peak oil
* that by your silence you acknowledge America is weakened and your economic freedom curtailed by sending $6 trillion a decade overseas for oil
* that you have no answer to the fact that fossil fuels are close to peaking and then entering a permanent state of decline, and that it just makes common sense to start funding research into alternative methods of generating energy
* that America is the most vulnerable nation on earth when it comes to being crippled by high oil prices when they inevitably hit
* that fossil fuels kill people through both scientifically verifiable global warming AND particulate pollution, toxic metals, etc, all of which contribute to lung and throat cancers and diseases
* that you haven't really thought about the suburban town planning authorities and the thousands of ways they already control the decisions you can make and the car-dependent lifestyle you will live; and that these same authorities — using the same powers —[bless and do not curse]could be re-educated to build better, more oil independent New Urban environments. (Without turning anything into North Korea or the USSR! You would just end up with more attractive, European looking cities. Who said anything about changing your constitution or government to market ratio of GDP?).

It was a lot to concede in one hit — by your sheer lack of response — so I'll thank you for it now.

 

[lordbt]

Oh the irony if some future climate & peak oil catastrophe pits nuclear nations against each other and we nuke ourselves back to the stone age. Who will guarantee your personal freedoms then? In some future State-less post-climate crash, everyone is 'free'. Free to kill and be killed; as in Mad Max or the Book of Eli.

Didnt take you long to lunge right into fear mongering did it. At the next global warming sit-in will you be carrying the sign that says "Remember the Night Rider."

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Didnt take you long to lunge right into fear mongering did it. At the next global warming sit-in will you be carrying the sign that says "Remember the Night Rider."

Do you see the irony in such a statement? Or is it too subtle? Only a moment ago you warned us of the 'call for tyranny' implicit in policies aimed at tackling AGW. You spoke of the Soviets and the North Koreans and global despotism. But at least you weren't fear-mongering.

 

[lordbt]

Fossil fuels are going to run out one day. Peak oil is not far off, and that will mean moving from an era of ever increasing supplies of cheap oil to ever decreasing supplies of vastly more expensive oil. The markets have not prepared in time. They have failed to anticipate this, because the price of oil only starts rising after the peak. But by then it is too late. Energy projects take decades to deploy.

So, given America is the most oil exposed economy in the world, I'm STILL waiting for a Denialist to come in and explain how America is 'free-er' while in bondage to international oil prices, and how it is in America's interest and helps with their 'freedom' to keep funding people who don't like you very much to the tune of $600 billion dollars a year wasted in buying overseas oil.

Go ahead Denialists. Work your magic. If I hear one more cliched boring reply that any alternative is Totalitarian, I'm going to call it the un-thinking horse manure that it is. How are you going to prepare for peak oil? It's coming. Fast. The markets have failed. What is your recommendation for securing a reliable, sustainable, clean energy future that will power not only your generation but all generations of Americans to come?

Good post. Well, good if you grade posts on package dealing and the number of blows landed on straw men. First of all, your first sentence is factually false if taken literally and lays the predicate for your entire bogus argument. Perhaps you have forgotten that coal and natural gas are fossil fuels and neither are in short supply here in the US. Add in the untapped potential for oil from shale and your fear mongering and hyperventilation are reduced to just that--fear mongering and hyperventilation. The market, if allowed to work, will make the necessary adjustments. But you dont want the market to work. You want the state do compel obedience to your agenda. You want fossil fuel usage to end so you create a phony crisis, a phony shortage that only you and your statist loving pals can resolve.

You know, if one of you guys would actually engage in this debate honestly I would have more respect for you. But as your post demonstrates, an honest debate is not what you are after.

 

[lordbt]

Tragedy of the Commons for the win!

More dishonesty.

 

[lordbt]

The science of global warming says it is. W.H.O estimates 200 thousand people a year already die from global warming. And it's going to get worse.

200,000 die each year. Great. That should make it easy for you to find a name and link that person death directly to my actions. Good luck with that.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

You know, if one of you guys would actually engage in this debate honestly I would have more respect for you. But as your post demonstrates, an honest debate is not what you are after.

If an honest debate is what you're after, why ignore certain arguments?

200,000 die each year. Great. That should make it easy for you to find a name and link that person death directly to my actions. Good luck with that.

What would make you think that that was necessary in order to demonstrate the point?

 

[rambot]

What would make you think that that was necessary in order to demonstrate the point?

As I always suspected; lordbt doesn't believe humans without names (that he knows) are worthy of anything more than a speedbump.

And, something akin to a point here:

First of all, your first sentence is factually false if taken literally and lays the predicate for your entire bogus argument. Perhaps you have forgotten that coal and natural gas are fossil fuels and neither are in short supply here in the US. Add in the untapped potential for oil from shale and your fear mongering and hyperventilation are reduced to just that--fear mongering and hyperventilation.

You are fully, honestly and truly arguing that fossil fuels will never run out? Does it make sense for the US to throw everything it has behind 5 different technologies that are ALL finite?

 

[thaumaturgy]

I think Gawron addressed this accurately. We arent dogs, or bees or ants or lions whose survival and social structures are instinctual. We are men whose survival and social structures are volitional, so there is really nothing a rational creature like man can learn from how irrational animals behave.

Wow. That's so "insightful". So you think early humans gathered into social groups because they 'reasoned' it out?

Well, that's sweet.

The trouble is, I am a free man living in (ostensibly) a free country. What gives you the authority to compel my obedience to your will on this matter?

The same "right" I have to ensure you do NOT have a critical mass of plutonium. The same "right" I have to ensure you do NOT burn infants for fuel. The same "right" I have to ensure you do NOT dump long-lived toxins in your backyard.

If you wish to reduce your emissions, go right ahead. If you and every other human voluntarily goes along with your "fix" it wont matter what I do will it.

So you are arguing that if everyone else does something it will render you failure to do accordingly less of an impactor? That's probably quite true, but then that is hardly a rational approach. Because unless you think you are the ONLY person who will act thusly (and by "thusly" I mean selfishly, because we are talking about depleting a resource everyone relies on, and doing damage to the atmosphere that everyone lives in) it is a pretty seriously flawed reasoning.

Let's put it this way: in your libertarian utopia do you currently have the right to operate a vehicle that repeatedly fails smog emissions tests? Do you have the "right" to burn leaded gasoline in your car? If you have a right to do the latter, where do you get the leaded gasoline?

Your solution, just like every solution from the left to every perceived 'problem,' involves forced compliance to your commands.

Yes, it is because of us "Leftists" that we have laws against murder, traffic laws, laws against theft, etc.

I'm so sorry we impose those on you so harshly. Maybe you could go off and make your own utopia!

So grave is this problem that only a global despotism can save us. Sorry, I would rather be free.

You are free! Free to ignore the science that has convinced the majority of experts in the field it is a serious issue, free to ignore the likely outcome of your own actions. Free to be as ignorant, willful or otherwise, as you can be!

Let's say you wish to "ignore" gravity. It's only a "science" thing, so maybe you can carry a couch up to the top floor of your office building and drop it down over the exit door as people leave for the day, and you can see if your "ignoring" gravity results in no real problems.

The Soviets had a "stable society" so do the North Koreans. A "stable society" is not the objective. A free society is.

THe soviets didn't have a "stable society" now did they? Where is the USSR today? The North Koreans? Are you actually tracking on your own arguments? They are so unstable they repeatedly rely on the kindness of their enemies to feed them! That's not "stability".

But hey, you are "free" to misinterpret everything you read and even come up with ignorance-based responses!

If you believe agw is real then to do nothing is irrational. If you don't believe agw is real then you are up against a huge number of scientists who know a lot more about this than you which makes you look "uninformed".

So which is it: irrational vs ignorant? You can be free and do either one.

But in either case your freedom is "self-limiting" and it won't do you much good for very long.

I'm currently free go out and start punching police officers in the face. I'm guessing that will be about 1 punch worth of freedom.

 

[eclipsenow]

Do you see the irony in such a statement? Or is it too subtle? Only a moment ago you warned us of the 'call for tyranny' implicit in policies aimed at tackling AGW. You spoke of the Soviets and the North Koreans and global despotism. But at least you weren't fear-mongering.

And he STILL hasn't responded to the fact that solving global warming could also solve America's energy security, sluggish economy, growing obesity and slowing traffic problems. All in one hit. Well, a few hits actually. Clean GenIV nuclear reactors that eat waste, New Urbanism, and fast rail.

Fast rail? Isn't that what COMMUNIST CHINA USES!!!!! I must be a Socialist after all! IT'S ALL A SOCIALIST CONSPIRACY!!!!! But only the AGW activists are fear mongering!

Lordbt,
just to remind you, these are the issues you need to respond to if you're going to have any credibility in this conversation and not just come off as sulking.

***

​

* WHO says climate change killed 150 000 people in 2000, and is now up to 200 000 people a year.
WHO | Climate and health
* Current town planners already 'control' you by dictating that suburbia is the town plan dominating the market; however New Urbanism could reduce America's obesity epidemic, reduce your oil dependency, increase affordable housing, increase city vitality, increase local economic interdependence and resilience, and increase your energy security.
* America has the most suburbia and uses the most oil per capita, consuming double the oil of the average European and far more on a per capita basis than China.
* America is the nation most vulnerable to peak oil.
* You have no plan for peak oil. I'd enact the "Oil Depletion Protocol".
Home | Oil Depletion Protocol
* Right now America is weakened by buying foreign oil, sending $6 trillion overseas every decade. This will only get worse after peak oil.
* Fossil fuels are close to peaking and WILL run out one day. Putting a price on carbon is one way to gently help the economy prepare for this and encourage the MARKET to decide the best energy source.
* Fossil fuels kill people right now through both scientifically verifiable global warming AND particulate pollution, toxic metals, etc, all of which contribute to lung and throat cancers and diseases
* that you — being paranoid about government control and power —[bless and do not curse]haven't really thought about the suburban town planning authorities and the thousands of ways they already control the decisions you can make and the car-dependent lifestyle you will live; and that these same authorities could be re-educated to build better, more oil independent New Urban environments.
* (Without turning anything into North Korea or the USSR! You would just end up with more attractive, European looking cities. Who said anything about changing your constitution or government to market ratio of GDP?).

 

[lordbt]

As I always suspected; lordbt doesn't believe humans without names (that he knows) are worthy of anything more than a speedbump.

I dont know what that means.

And, something akin to a point here:You are fully, honestly and truly arguing that fossil fuels will never run out?

There will never be a moment where someone holds up a beaker that contains the last few ounces of oil on the planet. The fact that it is finite will cause its price to rise as it becomes more scarce. We will never run out of oil. It will, however, reach a point where it no longer makes economic sense to extract it from the ground.

Does it make sense for the US to throw everything it has behind 5 different technologies that are ALL finite?

Yes. Once a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine is developed we wont have much need for them. Until then, we do.