are there still any climate sceptics out there??? It's only 5mins...

[charliecharlie]

http://media.causes.com/510213?email=true

xxcc

[EDOldie]

?If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.?

One of the most evil men of the 20th century said this. Whatever you think the reasons for climate change the way the state has manipulated this. Nuclear being the new 'clean' fuel and a third runway at Heathrow being the only 'sensible, ecological option' makes me very sceptical indeed. Using children in this way is not only slightly nauseating but almost hysterical. I don't know what the truth is about climate change but I suspect nobody really does either. To supress debate and alternative viewpoints by having some sort of accepted wisdom thrust down your throat by the establishment is as worrying as the message put across by that young girl.

[PeckhamRose]

Beautifully put EDOldie.

I think I agree with you.

I am very concerned by the way the state makes me feel guilty for putting too much water in my kettle or for forgetting to turn off a light when - as you can see from one of my photos in the "View from our windows" thread, all the lights are on at night at buildings in which no-one lives or always works. So I refuse to feel guilty. Simple. It's not that I am neceesarily sceptical, more suspicious of this government and everything it tells me.

[mockney piers]

This is precisely why I keep telling people that the lies this government have told have been so deeply damaging. Because now everyone greats everything they say with the same suspicion and distrust.

Frankly I don't think governments have anything to gain from doing anything about climate change as it will pertty much all involve sacrifice. That which they are doing, though not enough, is actually for the right reason (even a stopped flock tells the right time twice a day).

Buy EDOldie has an incredibly valid point that they can't help but lie and spin, they're like the scorpion crossing the river, they lie because they are new labour.

So instead of saying a new rnway is all about jobs and tax dollars they claim that ots somehow environmental, that (and I quote from some new labour twit on the today programme the other morning) 'we will hit or targets because electric cars and trains will travel without producing carbon'. Ok mate, you're either a bad and manipulative liar or are stupid, you choose.

Bad politics shouldn't make us ignore what's happening just because it makes us feel

guilty, or because it gives us an easy get out. As EDOldie quotes, the truth (or reality) will always tell.

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> (even a stopped flock tells the right time twice a day).

That'll be flock of Cuckoos, presumably?

[EDOldie]

This is exactly the sort of perverse twisting of the truth that gets my blood to boiling point.

As any self respecting forumite knows it is an asylum of cuckoos.

[HAL9000]

Quite right - apparently, cooch and family too. I thought we'd reserved asylum for forumites?

[Townleygreen]

Climate sceptics. Schmeptics.

What are they going to respond when their grandchildren say to them, "so you prevented people doing something about climate change when it could have been stopped. Why was that grandpa? Why did you want us to suffer, grandpa? Coz its really horrible, grandpa." Cries.

Those sceptics are consciousless b*st*rds, no mistake.

I could kill them.

I hope none come near me when I have a weapon handy.

[Huguenot]

AAAAArgh.!

WTF?

Piersy manipulating climate change to make a political point? WTF is the world coming to?

Accusing the state of manipulation and thus rejecting the findings is just DENIAL!!! It's NUTS!!!! There is no bloody justification for being NUTS. "I hate the government therefore the world is FLAT"

AAAAAAArgh.!!

At times like this I wish you all the worst. I just hate the fact that as a reasonable bloke I don't want to see you suffer. It's my own bloody failing. F you, I'll dance on your grave.

But you know I won't don't you. I'll still keep trying to help whilst you pee on my hand. AAAAAAArgh.!!

[????]

Mmm...I don't think that was what MP was saying at all Hugenot..

On another note.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/12/why_micro_wind_turbines_dont.html#comments

Read and don't bother with the gesture stuff...we need some proper solutions not all this green-lite pretend nonsense

[mockney piers]

Eh?

I think my point was that people will go "they're lying about a, therefore b is also a lie"

I do feel guilty ever time I put a kettle

on and that's adit should be. I do have energy efficien light bulbs even if try pole out over the lampshade but I'm nit even beginning to do nearly enough.

I'm pretty sure I've never been a denier.

[PeckhamRose]

Oh don't get me wrong, I don't put more water in the kettle than I need to, because that way I pay less in electric bills.

And so on. I think Priuses and other Hybrid cars are a joke because we are made to believe they're all green and friendly. They're not.

I am talking about the fact the world and the climate and the nature is all bigger than us and our effect.

Didn't I read somewhere that if the world has been around 24 hours, then we as humans have only been here the last minute.

[silverfox]

Not sure what Huguenot was ranting about above but people are right to be sceptical about this whole issue.

The 'facts' are not necessarily FACTS and many of the doom mongers represented by those trashing Copenhagen appear to belong to the great unwashed meat is murder brigade, happily trotting out dubious platitudes as to the causes.

This is a serious issue. The airline industry accounts for only a fraction of this country's carbon emissions. Charging mobile phones, watching sky tv, and plugging in computers does more damage than all the planes in the sky.

Some of the 'solutions' being proposed belong in the realm of Noddy land. Electric cars, wind turbines etc all need rare earth metals that the Chinese have cornered the market in years ago (cue political/military tensions in the near future). In order to extract the rare earth metals we need to rip the planet apart causing severe ecological damage and so on and so on.

[Townleygreen]

They recently found a new supply of rare earths in Greenland

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6860901.ece

[EDOldie]

What worries me in this argument as much as the environment (I am naturally concerned that the planet is not ruined) is the way this has become a sort of moral crusade about how people live their lives. I.e. if you take the plane rather than the train you are somehow a bed person.

The other thing that gets me (and perhaps I am being ridiculous) with these conferences like Copenhagen. Is what is the environmental cost? Getting everyone there and back, politicians, journos, Police, protesters, scientists, civil servants, feeding them, etc, the list goes on and on. I can see the intended aim of the conference but does the means justify the end?

[mockney piers]

I'm not surewhoa useful it is saying 'we are but a blip in astronomical scales'.

err yes. And yeah another full on ice age is due in about 80,000 years with all of our cities buried under ice.

Rigggght, but effectively so what.

But we are having an affect in upon our fellow men in the preventable short term. And surely it is a moral responsibility to try and so something about that.

[silverfox]

Townleygreen Wrote:

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> They recently found a new supply of rare earths in

> Greenland

>

> http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/ind

> ustry_sectors/natural_resources/article6860901.ece

That's a very good point you raise there Townleygreen and it raises some worrying implications.

As already covered on the 10:10 thread, the solution to a good many of the problems we face will be technological and scientific advances, ie cleaner energy with more efficient use of resources. Rare earth metals are part of this solution and the find in Greenland is certainly welcome to prevent Chinese domination of this field.

However there is a terrible irony to all this: namely Antarctica.

There is a good argument to say that the melting of the ice on that huge continent is welcome in the sense that it will allow us to mine a huge new reserve of minerals and metals - not just the gold, coal and oil that the super-powers are presently squaring-up for in what will be a 21st-century land grab - but the very rare earth metals that are presently seen as so valuable for green technology and military applications.

[Townleygreen]

It would probably take many centuries for the Antarctic ice to all melt.

More to the point it would raise global sea levels by around 65 meters!

[silverfox]

You see, this is what makes me sceptical. Who says 65 metres and how do they estimate this? In what sense is this a fact?

If I say - Surely if low-lying areas of the world are submerged by rising sea levels the sea will spread out and so not rise so much? - Now that sounds a bit childish and non-scientific. However there is a serious point there. Where does this figure of 65 metres come from? Scientists can obviously say we estimate there to be xx billion cubic metres of ice in the antarctic but it simply doesn't make sense to say if it all melted instantaneously sea levels would rise 65 metres.

[helena handbasket]

The child in the video is Severn Susuki. She is the daughter of David Suzuki, a highly respected environmental scientist.

As far as I'm concerned, he is Captain Canada! Love him.......

David Suzuki Foundation

[EDOldie]

This makes me feel even more uncomfortable. Is this attention seeking behaviour?

[SeanMacGabhann]

such lazy lazy thinking and generalising. Those Iraq war protesters were wrong too innit?

If I'm wrong about climate change (along with say, most scientists) you won't find a more relieved man

But if the deniers are wrong?

I especially hate the deniers who take umbrage at being called "flat earthers" - like there isn't SOME similarity?

[EDOldie]

Sean, you're missing the point. To deny is one thing, questioning is another.

[SeanMacGabhann]

so, the quote I used was just mere "questioning" was it?

How much questioning do you want do do anyway? At what point will deniers say "hmmm... maybe things are moving apace"

I don't mind questioning - constant questioning - but can we talk about moving in the right direction AS we question and if we find that things aren't quite so bad, then maybe we can walk backwards. But until then..

And it's not even a question of if it's "man made" or not. It is a question of "here is what is happening with climate - let's not worry about who's fault it is, what can we do about it NOW"

[charliecharlie]

[quote name=And it's not even a question of if it's "man made" or not. It is a question of "here is what is happening with climate - let's not worry about who's fault it is' date=' what can we do about it NOW"

]

Halle.... bloody.... lujah

well said Sean

http://right-thoughts.us/images/uploads/polar_bears_ice.jpg