Interesting, although I must say I was never worried that humans would go extinct because of global warming. Just not so keen on all the upheaval and territory fighting that might happen along the way. But I guess in that sense it kind of selfish to worry about global warming. Maybe the poor people in Greenland deserve some warmer years, and I should gladly chill for their benefit (chill because I think it would be getting colder where I live, if the gulf stream became diverted).
Global Warming Delusions
61–70 of 100 posts
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#62Copenhagen Consensus: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global...
It's not a consensus, at least I don't agree with it. I think the whole thing is mostly marketing, as is evident by the TED talk where lomborg presents mostly strawman argumentation (I don't think I have heard worries about heat deaths elsewhere, yet he dwells on them, as an example).
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There might be benefits to a warmer climate. Fine. If we were just simply facing natural global warming (and maybe we are, I'm no expert), I'd say "lemonade from lemons" and all that. I tend to come down on the side of action to stop possible human contribution to global warming, though. One reason is simply fear of the unknown - there might be benefits, but we're doing alright now, and that isn't really a knob I fee…
It is not for you to decide how I spend my resources. That is not your function, and for you to look down your nose at me for disagreeing with that is the height of arrogance. You say I should spend $250K to pad the walls and floor of my home with hypoallergenic 4 inch thick foam because then my kid won't get hurt when he falls. If I point out that I'd rather spend the $250K on his college, than I'm a bastard. You sa…
Whoa, dude. Calm down.
First: in some things, it is for society to decide how you spend your resources. For instance, you can't spend them on blowing up random buildings. How is limiting your emissions qualitatively different?
Second: when the fuck did I say anything about spending $250k to pad your kids walls, or $1k to buy a fucking mural? Take your hyperbole back to reddit, please.
Third: what moralistic bullying are you talking about? When I suggested it might be a cynical response from people who benefit from the current state of things? You really don't think there are people for whom that's true? I admit I probably could have picked a better phrase than "I wonder", but seriously, your response is way out of band.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not for you to decide how I spend my resources. That is not your function, and for you to look down your nose at me for disagreeing with that is the height of arrogance. You say I should spend $250K to pad the walls and floor of my home with hypoallergenic 4 inch thick foam because then my kid won't get hurt when he falls. If I point out that I'd rather spend the $250K on his college, than I'm a bastard. You sa…
Whoa, dude. Calm down. First: in some things, it is for society to decide how you spend your resources. For instance, you can't spend them on blowing up random buildings. How is limiting your emissions qualitatively different? Second: when the fuck did I say anything about spending $250k to pad your kids walls, or $1k to buy a fucking mural? Take your hyperbole back to reddit, please. Third: what moralistic bullying…
A meta observation from the peanut gallery:
Instead of both of you using hyperbole to make your points, how about one/both of you outline exactly under which circumstances the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one? That might actually advance your discussion.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#65War is a much simpler problem than global warming, yet we can't agree its validity or stop it. Given this, both war and global warming are probably inevitable until evolution produces a more rational and forward-thinking dominant species.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not for you to decide how I spend my resources. That is not your function, and for you to look down your nose at me for disagreeing with that is the height of arrogance. You say I should spend $250K to pad the walls and floor of my home with hypoallergenic 4 inch thick foam because then my kid won't get hurt when he falls. If I point out that I'd rather spend the $250K on his college, than I'm a bastard. You sa…
Whoa, dude. Calm down. First: in some things, it is for society to decide how you spend your resources. For instance, you can't spend them on blowing up random buildings. How is limiting your emissions qualitatively different? Second: when the fuck did I say anything about spending $250k to pad your kids walls, or $1k to buy a fucking mural? Take your hyperbole back to reddit, please. Third: what moralistic bullying…
First, I'd like to note, that the whole broken-windows theory is alive and well. I said bastard, you said fuck. I bet you wouldn't have said it, if I hadn't said bastard. That's not anything more than an observation about humans in general, it's not meant as anything more.
In regards to your protest at the level of my response. My response is appropriate, but it is, indeed, non-typical. I purposely chose to take off the gloves here, rather than water down my speech because the watered down speech that is so typically used in these kinds of discussions has confused you and many others.
Just like abstraction in software, much of our society abstracts away the really important bits. Just like in software, this can be abused.
Anytime you calmly and rationally talk about adding taxes to do this program or that program, you need to remember that there are men with guns that will deprive people of their lives or their liberty unless they comply. Too often, you forget that because it's abstracted away by the system we have. I feel that such a profound imposition of your will over mine is indeed cause for less watered down speech than usually used. If that made you uncomfortable, than I'm happy about that. That was it's intent.
When you then go on to say that you want to use that awesome power regardless of whether or not the original catalyst is a valid one, because "it's a good idea", I have to do what I can to get through to you how dangerous that sort of thinking is.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoa, dude. Calm down. First: in some things, it is for society to decide how you spend your resources. For instance, you can't spend them on blowing up random buildings. How is limiting your emissions qualitatively different? Second: when the fuck did I say anything about spending $250k to pad your kids walls, or $1k to buy a fucking mural? Take your hyperbole back to reddit, please. Third: what moralistic bullying…
A meta observation from the peanut gallery: Instead of both of you using hyperbole to make your points, how about one/both of you outline exactly under which circumstances the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one? That might actually advance your discussion.
From a species standpoint, I think the good of the many always trumps the good of the few.
I also concede that the intentions of both sides are honorable. I think there are puppet masters who use environmental issues to effect trade negotiations or as cover to take more power, but the average hacker news reader, I think has honorable intentions.
The disagreement lies in what constitutes the good of the many. What was so attractive about this article for me was that the articles author attempted to open up that discussion a little more than "is it warming or isn't it".
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#68You've got to remember this guy is speaking from the perspective of a biologist. To him an economic events like the like the Global Financial Crisis are pretty much irrelevant. Even if global warming had a an effect like 50 years of GFC it wouldn't harm the world biologically but it would totally suck to live through.
Even if the necessary relocation of many people happened in an orderly fashion the cost would be huge. Imagine cost of abandoning most of a significant city because the climate could no longer support the population.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#69The plural of anecdote is not data. And that's what this article presented: don't be afraid of global warming because I could tell you stories about how it's not so bad. There are many problems the author unfortunately omits. Arctic sea shelves collapse? The ocean rises and millions if not billions may be displaced. How's that for an anecdote.
No offense but I think you're missing the point. The author is not trying to paint an all-positive view of Global Warming he's trying to counter the arguments that claim it will be the end of the world. The problem with GW right now is it's a political football. The left wants to paint the right as irresponsible so they make catastrophic predictions. The right wants to paint the left as alarmist so they deny it outri…
I want to point out the the left-right colouring of GW is largely a US (Also Australia, where I live) development. I think the reason for this political situation is quite silly.
If GW is true, this probably requires regulation, complex interventionist policies etc. The things that the left wants. So the left believes & the right doesn't. Or it thinks that it is natural or inevitable or not so bad.
I think this is an example of how ideology can become a belief in policies rather then principles.
Re: Global Warming Delusions
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never claimed there couldn't be benefits of global warming. Certainly there will be benefits as well as drawbacks. But the thesis of the article is that the evidence of the serious consequences of global warming is quite thin. Saying that there will be benefits of global warming doesn't support that thesis; when people say the consequences of global warming will be severe, they are already taking into account the b…
> They are already taking into account the benefits. Really? Are you sure? What people? I'd love to read the papers (probably in economics journals, I assume) that did this analysis, as such an analysis would surely be well worth my time to read. The few economists I'm aware of discussing this, caution that it is not worth the money that GW advocates are proposing pouring down this rat hole. Do you have any papers th…
I'm sure if you look at the thousands of references in the IPCC Working Group II report on impacts and vulnerability you'll find plenty. Or did you already look there?