Comments on The Viceroy's Fuguestate: Biofuels Causing Death And Mayhem?

I was refering to animals migrating, not people. Y...

2008-04-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

I was refering to animals migrating, not people. You're the one being draconian here, I've never blithely advocated the death of millions, not once. You have on at least 3 posts. Go have a barbeque, it's Friday.

You think like it was 1100 AD. You know, like the...

2008-04-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

You think like it was 1100 AD. You know, like there are 150 million people living in scattered habitations around the globe who can migrate at will if the climate changes too much one way or the other. They just throw everything in a wooden cart and start flogging the oxen.

Now you’re joking, right?

There are over 6 billion people on the planet and the only adaptive means they have are technological means. They’re not going any place. They will just have to turn the thermostat up or down in the old mud hut.

At least you admit you would do everything you could to save human lives if you guessed wrong on climate change. But by then, of course, you will just throw your hands up in exasperation because it will be way too late to save anybody. And what would have been a few million lives lost by taking affirmative action on climate change will have turned into hundreds of millions lost by doing nothing.

And that's the difference between us. I'm willing to roll the dice on a few million, and you want to bet the ranch.

Why does the climate changing mean the climate is ...

2008-04-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

Why does the climate changing mean the climate is getting worse? The Climate has been changing (rising and falling) since the Earth has had an atomsphere, it is neither bad nor good. It merely is. There are advantages and disadvantages to a warmer climate as well as advantages and disadvantages to a cooler climate. For a moment I will accept your premise that we can change the climate at will. Suppose we overcorrect and plunge into an Ice Age? Ice Ages have proved to be far more swift, final and deadly for the species that happened to be alive at the time than warmer periods. For instance around 1100 a.d. Greenland had agriculture, it was warmer, that was good for the people practicing the agriculture there at that time. And that warmer period may have caused problems for people and animals in other parts of the world during that era. Let's say for a moment the climate gets "worse," you seem content to let people die, whereas I would do everything possible to help as many of them as possible. Animal species don't just lie down and die when the climate changes, they have survival instincts as well, they migrate or adapt in other ways or as a last resort yes, they die, but not willingly. We can and have adapted to a changing climate as well. The climate is what it is, there is nothing to fix. By the way I like the word "ilk", I don't use it enough. :) Don't forget, many of the same voices clamoring about global warming today, were warning of a coming Ice Age in the 1970s.

Okay. I accept your argument about a self-regulat...

2008-04-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

Okay. I accept your argument about a self-regulating climate. Now will you go on the record and say that if you are wrong, and the climate gets worse, you will do nothing to stop millions of people from dying? Will you let your self-regulating climate decimate the human population?

You see, if we take affirmative action to reverse climate change, millions will die (or be reduced to abject poverty) as a result of those actions. That’s my position. I am willing to fix the environment even if it costs lives.

You are not willing to do anything because you believe the climate is self-regulating. But are you willing to take responsibility for the death of millions if you are wrong? I doubt it. You will likely claim that human populations, like the climate, are self-regulating, which is what I told you at the beginning of this discussion.

And lose the “ilk” crap, will you? It’s a dumb word to start with and is even dumber when overused.

We may not need to do anything. Indeed, the amount...

2008-04-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

We may not need to do anything. Indeed, the amount of warming your ilk is caterwauling about amounts to roughly 7/10ths of 1 degree Celsius since the 1850s, there is evidence in the fossil record of far more drastic warming than that having taken place long before we were ever around. Your Mother has plenty of self correcting mechanisms up her sleeve. For instance, according to NASA, North America, Siberia and China have received more snowfall this winter than at any time in the last 50 years so relax and stop advocating killing people by mass starvation. Unless of course your willing to be the first to lead by example...

What is your solution, Mr. Smarty Pants? Oh, let...

2008-04-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

What is your solution, Mr. Smarty Pants? Oh, let me guess. You will wait until Antarctica thaws out and then move all the people you are trying to keep alive to the “new” continent. Or how about pumping babies up with helium and letting them float to the moon?

No doubt you will have something oh-so funny and glib to say about saving Mother Earth or about me, but you really have nothing to say about the situation we are in. You have no clue, just wisecracks.

That's quite the final solution you've dialed up t...

2008-04-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

That's quite the final solution you've dialed up there little Miss Adolf. Do you want to be the one to decide who lives or dies? Perhaps you should follow the advice of a bumpersticker from one of your ilk:

Save The Planet, Kill Yourself

...be part of the solution.

I still think you're joking.

I’m not joking at all. Die-offs are natural pheno...

2008-04-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

I’m not joking at all. Die-offs are natural phenomena. Biological populations reach a critical level and then crash, and human populations are no different. The air, water, and soil pollution we see all around us are symptoms of too many people. If our population crashes everyone will be much better off including the Earth herself. And we won’t have to worry about climate change anymore.

Millions of people have lost their lives in political or religious wars. In the war to save the planet millions will die also. It’s just the cost of having a clean and healthful environment.

As long as it's not you that's doing the dying, ri...

2008-04-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

As long as it's not you that's doing the dying, right? I'm going to assume you're joking...

I don’t think having a few million people die so t...

2008-04-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

I don’t think having a few million people die so that Mother Earth will have cleaner air is such a big deal. I don’t mean to sound harsh but tradeoffs must be made. Personally I’d rather see more polar bears and trees and natural beauty than people.