Remembering a comment on some thread I was rather vocal on, concerning the issue of Global Warming-Someone mentioned that they simply can't believe, that there is anyone in the world that "doesn't believe in Global Warming"(without actually addressing me, they alluded to me, the only one on the thread as the voice of consternation and dissent....

Never did get a chance to address that moron directly-

edit: (deleted name-calling, accusations, and ripping on the emotionally-dependent, well-meaning souls of the west...)

Not a day to be mean to the minions....

I took a geology class with a professor who studied gypsum caves in Northern New Mexico and, after collaborating his data with an astrophysicist, developed a theory that the temperature rise on earth was due to the cycling of sun spots that occurs about every 600 years. He is still working on it. But who knows if that one is true either.

I agree with the last sentiment given by Patrick Moore in that we might keep environmentalism in mind in order to improve our methods. Because honestly, would anyone give up their life right now, unless they were forced to? Those kids are at that rally to socialize and conjure up material for poetry chapbooks. That woman who lived in the tree for years was dangling with jewelry. Does she know how's that's mined?

I really detest scare tactics of all kinds. And I think most University activist leaders, spouting this stuff, are just doing it to get laid.

And I consider myself liberal.

Unfortunately it seems that there are too many active environmentalists that rely on sensationalism rather then research and common sense.

What's interesting to me is a tour I took of a wind farm. There were the remains of dead birds littering the place. When I asked about it they said that the rapidly spinning blades were like a minefield for birds trying to navigate the area and that after a while they learned to avoid the power field.

Either that or they killed all the birds in the area. What gets me is that people (myself included) don't take into account the effect that environmentalism has on the environment. For instance in some cases it's more harmful to the environment to recycle then it is to throw away garbage.

Discarding this video. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

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Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 10:13am PST - promote requested by gorgonheap.

Typical episode of Bullshit. Some good points transparently filtered to argue libertarian views. If P&T stopped there I would gladly watch their show.

What turned me off Bullshit a while back was their consistent obfuscation of several points:

• The source of and appropriate level of scientific skepticism
  
• The difference between scientific understanding and personal politics
  
• The value of warnings to help us avoid future problems (as in this episode).
  

my problem with them is the same, and I usually hate the digression that snowball's by episode's end-BUT...in the case of environmental issues, most measures imposed on the populous, i.e. fuel-efficiency, recycling, and the goddamn personal missions of passion most environmentalists engage in, always address symptomology. instead of the real problem, the planet's current paradigm of use-consume-spend-and try to work towards a better future for the planet with your personal habits.....

BULLSHIT-because out of 5 seconds of this message, the other 23hrs 59 minutes and 55 seconds of the day are used to program the world to do th opposite....these little band-aid sticking hippy fucks, are as ineffectual as a finger in a dike......the planet, without our input, should humans disappear tomorrow, and the solar cycle's ebb and flow warm cool or otherwise dance as he will about the planet,(meaning global warming as it is being fed to monkeys is a lie) will go back to doing what it does best.....

oh, mind you, there will be more trash strewn about after this empire ceases to be, but the place will green the fuck up again quick-And why would you consider it a pity, should a few generations inherit the funky trash planet for a while??

Think in hundreds of years and know, that humans may be simply a passing fucking fancy-These scenarios of 2364 and everyone floating around in some progressive accumulation of knowledge extant's wondrous progress, is horseshit-My bet, is humans won't make it to 2050 if we don't do something t alter the paradigm.....you can't change this shit, you can simply witness history and be happy to be sucking air.......

oh, and tell yer great great grandchildren in a letter or scroll, to stay the hell away from radiation.....

>> ^choggie's essay

Sure we need a paradigm change, but with 6.5*10^9 people to reach it's not going to come from on high. It looks to me like the new paradigm will centre around bright green, or sustainability, or some such positivist concept that represents with the way we want to live, instead of the way a minority doesn't want us to live. That's why environmentalism has been declared dead in the 21st century, not because the intentions of movement were somehow flawed.

P&T can't touch this topic. Even if they could it's probably too normative for their tastes.

I'll keep sifting videos that have a constructive message, because wouldn't you know it, they seem to do well here.

How fast would your ideal scenario work, if 2/3rds of the earths current population disappeared in a matter of ten years, AND, the only impetus was survival of the species??.... given the current rate of decay in systems in place, THAT,is a reasonable possible scenario for the planet and her people, to go green..

Was it implied that this sift attempt is not a constructive one??? Well Au Sheboygan Contraire.....

Now that you've given your take on the video I would say that you've turned a P&T fluff piece into a constructive post.

About your catastrophe question, scenarios break down if we lose 2/3rds of the current population. Changing course is necessary both to avert catastrophe and to 'survive' peak population (let me know if you can think of a better term).

Bullshit vs. bullshit = bullshit

Peak population?
Bullshit??
folks are sounding more like me everyday....

Scenarios begin breaking down at the moment of conceptualization.....

>> ^choggie:
Scenarios begin breaking down at the moment of conceptualization.....

...but that doesn't diminish their usefulness.

Think about forecasts and predictions. They both anticipate the future, and in doing so also help to guide it--not unlike a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only difference is that predictions assume a confidence level we know to be too high.

Coming up with scenarios for the next 100 years isn't about clinging to an unrealistic source of constancy, it's about planning to avoid a worldwide depression or collapse due to foreseeable events.

I love this show.

If you want to know about the important scientific research that lead to the theory of global warming, read "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery. It deals only in straight fact and refers to the earth as "Gaia" only once to make a point.

That being said: One of the coolest things I think that has ever been said about global warming came from Michael Crichton in an essay at the back of his book "State of Fear", which he took a lot of shit for, because people said he was painting environmental activists as dangerous violent radicals.

Now, follow me here. At the end of the book, he does an essay about eugenics. (basically that we can breed out human flaws and create a superior race.) Back in the 1800s, the theory of eugenics was supported by almost every prominent scientist. Black, white, etc. NOW it's considered to be racist and completely wrong by almost every prominent scientist.

I believe that global warming exists but the point is: getting too carried away without having a good base of knowledge can do more harm than good. And if you ask almost anyone about global warming (if you've done any serious non-pamphlet research) you'll find that they know very little about the facts behind it. Just like the people in this video.

Using one or two youth gatherings, and featuring idealistic but ill-informed youths to represent the gamut of Canada's environmentalists who do rely on ecologically-based, well researched positions, is bull****.

To represent Canadian environmentalists at their best, P&T should have spoken to David Schindler, Elizabeth May, Tzeporah Berman, Maude Barlow, Holly Dressel, to name but a few.

Patrick Moore's pro-forestry stance, btw is not well regarded by some of Canada's most effective environmentalists: e.g. Montel Hummel of World Wildlife Fund who said: "I have read Patrick's book, Pacific Spirit. It is not the work of a 'forest ecologist' but a disappointing blend of pseudo-science and dubious assumptions being used to defend clearcutting and the forest industry."

Well said and well said choggie. Fortunately i was able to decipher what you decided to say today.

I think the world's going to hell in a handbasket. Thinking of the world we live in today, i'm thankful for some of the opportunities and benefits that i was granted by the grace of it, but hateful of the rest. A world in which a respectable life-course is to earn money working in an office that deals solely with handling advertising material for companies that sell commodities. I could name other useless vocations that stem from other vocations, and even vocations that stem from the first. "High fashion" - of no practical use to anyone, yet money to be earned. And a magazine that reports on high fashion - a useless job reporting on a useless job, yet money to be earned. What a perfect little rat race we've designed for ourselves, and as long as not too many people protest and try to break it at once, the illusion of progress holds itself steady.

I don't have solutions, and i don't want to hear that what we have now is the best of the available options. I hate it the way it is, and i hate being forced to play that game.

I think the path we chose for ourselves worked up to a point, and then it needed changing for something better for any REAL further "progress" to take place. Right now, we're just going through the motions, a little prison that we made for ourselves that's easy to blame on some imaginary people that pull all the strings. When in actual fact, they don't exist, and we're pulling our own.

I'd love the entire world as a collective to have a Radiohead-Just moment where they all suddenly stop what they're doing, curl up into a ball and go "my god, i've just wasted 30 years of my life in a tiny cubicle entering numbers into a spreedsheet that ultimately has no meaning to humans or humankind".

Neil Armstrong - the most naive words ever spoken - "one giant leap for mankind".. how true we've made those words ring out.

Does this rhetoric even belong under this video's comments?

real further "progress"?
On one hand, I agree with what you said. A society going for happiness, pleasure, and just working all the time, is completely pointless. These people working on their spreadsheets, and reading gossip magazines, what is the fucking point?
But on the other hand, what is the fucking point of anything else? Do you want people to sit around and worship? And be spiritual? People are doing exactly what they should do, which is go for their own selfish goals. It's fucking pointless, but so is everything else.

Isn't this show about showing the shortcomings of the extremist fringes of the topics they bring up (or, in some cases, extremist topics)? I'm sure they acknowledge there are valid arguments for enviromental debate, but that's not what they're addressing here. Instead, they're addressing the evolved, pop-culture enviromentalist movement grown out of the original 60's and 70's movement, where today's movement isn't based on on real enviromental issues but instead used to further other agendas. Of course you won't find an indepth and thoroughly scientific exposé, this is a comedic show with two comedians as hosts. Their main objective is to amuse the viewer by means of exposing the shortcomings of the topic they bring up, and to highlight the real motivations and agendas behind them. They bring up the fact that there's a point of dispute on these issues, and that alone should be enough in 20-30 minutes to make people look for the truth of the matter and make up their own mind without turning it into a history/science class.
I'd like to think of Penn&Teller as the Christopher Hitchens' of pop-culture phenomenons.

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