lol lol springtide might be out of your depth there hey, chris columbus a simple sailor with no scientific support from his country or europe proved the world was round so it is science who believes it is flat. the science of tha day actually warned him he would fall off the edge of the earth. if anything he may have gotten the idea from the islamic people, the european's can't take any cedit for that. happy travels am i going somewhere?? len
Pythagoras came up with the concept of a spherical earth a few hundred years BC but i think he was a scientist so....
Actually, ol' Columbus took Basque sailors with him to the Americas to show the way. They had been fishing cod grounds in Canada hundreds of years before anyone else worked it out. There sailing exploits were well known in its time among seamen, because the European stocks were depleted yet the Basque always came back with full hulls.
yes amazing what keeping it simple can do hey? and as back then it was all done without making the lot of the needy any worse in the process. len
Not sure, the royal family demanded high taxes they could live well and spend money on expanding the empire while the poor just kept up with their miserable lot. And the catholic church had convinced the people to build them churches and go off to far lands and preach, not sure if any of that helped the poor too much. Definately not the Basque. As we have not seen the full report on where the carbon tax will be spent, it will be interesting to see if the money can be put to good use. Or if it is indeed just another tax.
yes royal families and religion has stood over the people done nought for the poor, the biggest leader of religion has no bill pains eats well, nicelodgings, while the poor under him suffer, look a the money wasted on their edifaces while the poor suffer they actually took money on the plate from the poor to do it. and any compensation packages dealing with this new tax system along with any openess of when the money will go will all dissappear in time, it will be hard for the masses to keep tack of what they are doing with it. the first priority for australia is to look after its people, people die taking their medical conditions to the grave on long waiting lists, one bloke here i know wason a 5th yer list just befoe he died they supplied him with a lifetime supply of health aid. canceroperation patients turned away from their operation booking because there was no bed for them, you haven't heard anguish until you hear that patient. another had to make 9 trips from north of brissy for shoulder op', think about it in pre-op' on a food fast until around 5pm and then get sent home. and we have people all worried about 1.2% ccc. happens everyday. remember the GST was supposed to fund hospitals?? well it doesn't,their promises are guaranteed to change overtime. that's no furphy no glory in it for me. len
G'day Len In fact, it was Aristotle (384–322 BCE) who 'proved' the earth was spherical through employing the most simple scientific methodology available at that time - observation. Aristotle simply observed ships as they sailed away from him and noted that their hulls fell below the horizon before their sails. Thus he deduced that the earth was spherical rather than flat. Simple observation - brilliant stuff, hey? 'Happy travels' was/is a projection for you having a pleasant journey through life, nothing more, nothing less. Cheerio, Mark
thanks mark, still dosn't alter the fact that poor old chris columbus had all the learned people telling him he was sailing into destruction,and with simple navigation aids he proved all those learnerd people wrong. but that wasn't atteh expense of the poor. well apart from the forthcoming blight to make life less than livable, our path through it is very nice thank you. len
Is the topic climate or self delusion? If you wanted to show how and why fact is ditched in favor of motivated reasoning, you could find no better test case than climate change. After all, it's an issue where you have highly technical information on one hand and very strong beliefs on the other. And sure enough, one key predictor of whether you accept the science of global warming is whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The two groups have been growing more divided in their views about the topic, even as the science becomes more unequivocal. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that more education doesn't budge Republican views. On the contrary: In a 2008 Pew survey, for instance, only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college educated Republicans. In other words, a higher education correlated with an increased likelihood of denying the science on the issue. Meanwhile, among Democrats and independents, more education correlated with greater acceptance of the science. Other studies have shown a similar effect: Republicans who think they understand the global warming issue best are least concerned about it; and among Republicans and those with higher levels of distrust of science in general, learning more about the issue doesn't increase one's concern about it. What's going on here? excerpt https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1
I don't know. I would describe myself as fairly left wing. However, having seen how governments introduce things and muck them up (for want of a better word), I'm pretty reticent to back this tax. I believe that we need to do something to arrest climate change, but not convinced a carbon tax is gonna do the job. Ready for action on climate change but how to do it is the question. I have seen first hand, rising sea levels. My intuition tells me that human activity is responsible. Too many people. It has to have some effect. Mother nature will fight back and I think she is. Back off or I will punish you. But simple pychics i suspect. Funnily enough I keep finding my mind going back to population and this ridiculous pursuit of growth and profits. How do you legislate against the need to procreate and make more money. I think it goes back to a fear of death or something. I also remember an old lecturer of mine at uni that used to say only the middle class can afford to be green. Also I am not looking forward to the bloody spin that is going to hit us. It's all so boring and transparent. Maybe we all just need to do what we can personally. I would like some honestly from government. Not spin. But I think that asking too much. They are so short sighted. We just need to be creative and adjust and think of ways to live in this changing and sometimes frightening world.
"I've got an accounting background and I understand unless you make pollution cost something, companies are not going to do anything about it." - Laila Bazzi
I would like to see two seperate issues. There is no doubt the Governments will stuff it up and that the poor will be hard hit (that's me too) but the aware will be best set to benefit and the unaware will become aware of the issues when it costs them not to. We need to have this reckoning of paying the real cost of consuming. The pollies will stuff it up as they usually do but that needs to be accounted for at election time and as a country we are unable to see past the impact on our need to consume so that is unlikely to happen. Sustainability must come from paying the real cost - the replacement cost? - of the things we consume. What is the replacement cost of a gallon of oil?
Hey Len, I'm not taking sides on this one, mostly because I think the discussion/argument is pretty pointless. Deforestation, polluted water ways and disappearing species was already enough for me to know we were heading down a slippery slope. Any of the measures we would need to take for global warming are really just the same measures we need to take to make the planet a nice place to be. As a species, on the whole, we have been and continue to be a greedy, ignorant, selfish, shitty mob. In my opinion, most of this comes down to the battle of ego and the higher self. When I refer to ego, I refer to the 'ordinary mind' - the mind that thinks of itself as separate from all others and the world. In this respect even the Buddha had an ego. I reckon any problems we have with 'the world' are really just problems we have with ourselves. If we have a problem with climate change, or a problem with people who do or don't believe in human induced climate change, then we really just have a problem with ourselves. Or to paraphrase Carl Jung, the bitch in her is the bitch in you. But the point of all this psycho-babble is that you can only win an argument like this if it gives you a greater insight into your SELF. Hi annette, I'm going to work from the assumption that climate change is real or at the very least that any measures to counteract it are the same measures needed to stop wholesale environmental degradation... It is my opinion that a government will never be able to do enough to halt climate change and/or environmental degradation. Any government that tried would soon find themselves out of a job. Most people 'support' the idea of doing something about it, but have no concept of what it would cost them permanently; when it comes to the crunch they won't support any real change. This is where a carbon tax comes in, look like we are doing something, make it palatable to as many interest groups as possible and put off doing anything real until we absolutely have to, everyone else looks like doing it anyway so we might as well get on with it - we can tweak it later. But tell people that they have to turn off there clothes driers, leave their cars in the garage, give up overseas flights, sweat through the summer, huddle beneath blankets for the winter, have a short shower every other day etc etc ad infinitum., there would be riots in the streets. The only solution is to take note of the repercussions of all of your daily actions and adjust them accordingly. When you can say you are truly living within your means and within the means of the planet (and by that I mean not supporting any of the destructive enterprises) then perhaps you can start inviting people to perhaps consider your way of living as an alternative. This is the true meaning of being the change you wish to see in the world. It is my firm opinion that Government is really just representative OF us (collectively), and can never be representatives FOR us (individually). The government is as the people are. Do you think the people of a country have a right to complain about their corrupt officials, when they are all too willing to bribe a police officer to avoid a speeding fine? The only time that a government will be in a position to do anything about anything is when the vast majority of the people want it and are willing to make personal sacrifice to see that it is done. As Cypress Hill so aptly said... "When the shit goes down, ya better be ready." Pick it, pack it, fire it up and come along... [End extensive rant]
It took me ages to write that PP, so sorry if it seems I repeated or ignored your post - you snuck it in while I wasn't looking
Well, I must be living with Cypress Hill, picking it up, packing it, firing it up, I went along, & I must be doing MASSIVE hits from the bong, because even though its not a new method of... inhale, exhale... just got an ounce of in the mail... of Crimson Clover! Woo! Seriously, I must be hitting up some good weed because this is on page 6 and we are still here. I guess the human being that SWAM over the North Pole didn't really occur, nor did the some island countries of the south Pacific start to make floating islands to compensate for the increased water level in the oceans. So many signs point to yes, it is happening, that anyone is either duped by the media shock jocks, or is simply apathetic. I am done here, I'd rather be with Cypress Hill & Puff Daddy smoking a Jeffrey, stroking a furry wall when it all comes down in the cities due to apathy and short sighted greed. GL, I am done in this thread. ./spins around 3x and looks for a furry wall.
yes but that is it hey? we humans are blessed with being able to interpret what we see or read to suit our comfort zones and boxes that way life is easier on the mind, yes so someone who has no idea about the wider life could look at any situation and make it fit their world, a nice little comfort zone, but when the minority and they surely are take that interpretation without any real tangable evidence, they cook up a disaster happening using calculations derived behind man made parameters (parameters they change at will to suit their story) that is no hard copy history pointing the way, pure conjecture and it still is (remember now i have already ceded defeat for the poor in australia and making our poor suffer because of the affluent is not going to help the poor of other countries). one island supposedly sinking does not a disaster make,and interpreting that as ccc at present is hypothasy as i mentioned above.. yesi saw that well off scientist on the tellie he could care less about anything below his ego, he is enjoying his moment of fame, and we have the dirty dozen sorry 140 voting for the rest of us, be honest raise the level of inegrity in real terms not in special boys club terms, go to the people find out how little they trust anyone who gets into bed with gov'. then accept the result and put this ccc to bed, grab the bull by the right horns. do simple things that cost almost nothing, yes i can see if we used renewables that would save a lot of pollution (don't equate 1.2% pollution to being anything to be concerned with), but we would have to at the same time stop coal mining. what ethic says we should stop using coal then supply it to and encourage other countries to go their merry ways, while they provide cheap power to their people. but FIRST develop and set up affordable renewables (not make something so expensive that enewables look affordable) develop affordable power and then shut down all coal fired and mining, now that makes sense, it won't to teh ego bloke i saw on tellie because he would not have any future developing equations to fit intepretations. i like teh "causeand effect rule" find teh real cause and treatthat and teh effect will go, don't make an effect a cause, it won't work, it happens ofen where people seek life changing help from learnerd people it often fails in the end, because they amke an effect teh cause life is easier then for the councelor. using tv stars to con' the public won't work eitherr of course those people have a right to think and believe what they like, but not to be used as pawns. second grow food where those who will eat it live. repair the habitat our children of the future will then say how wise we msut have truely been, wisdom does not automatically come with inteligence or education at tertiary level, and being an accountant makes no difrence either. then what to do about all vehicles including planes and ships they all pollute? make it sensible and the masses will support it be no need for dictating terms. keep it simple stupid/silly KISS works. look after australian's first we are the 5th highest donor of money country in the worl to the international fund, we have the highest taxes, our record for charity beginning at home is dismal. len
G'day All Here it is, hot of the press, and probably what is to be the last nail in the coffin of climate change denial has finally arrived: Garnaut's Australia in the Global Response to Climate Change Summary Soon to follow the above, the Productivity Commission was also supposed to get into the act today and release their latest report on pricing carbon around the globe, but up until the time of posting, they had not done so. Anyway, you can have a look at the terms of reference, background papers, etc. for this coming paper here: Emission Reduction Policies and Carbon Prices in Key Economies Cheerio, must get back to the books, Mark
You're right Grahame, if they came straight and said that our way of living has to change dramatically, most people would run screaming into the streets. And yes our governments are a reflection of us collectively.
"Hot bed time reading tonight for me...." Haha, eco. Perhaps global warming is occurring in your bedroom? On a more serious note, I have just come across the most simple, erudite, succinct and sobering picture of global warming science I have ever read. As such, I thought I would share it with all of you good people here (my emphasis in bold): Droughts and flooding rains: life on a warming planet By Andrew Glikson - Earth and Paleo-climate Scientist, Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, Research School of Earth Science, the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Planetary Science Institute, and a member of the ANU Climate Change Institute Had the proposed Australian reduction of five per cent in the rate of carbon emissions by 2020 relative to 2000 [9] been adopted world-side, global emissions would be reduced from ~24,000 million tons/year to 22,500 million tons/year, hardly causing a dent in the current trajectory toward levels at which the polar ice sheets are further destabilized. ... It is not clear whether deep reduction in carbon emissions will be sufficient to stem the amplifying feedbacks associated with greenhouse gas warming and ice/melt water interactions. Barring an indefinite maintenance of sulphur aerosol emissions, deep emission cuts need to be accompanied by atmospheric CO2 draw-down by means of fast-track tree planting, application of biochar methods and chemical CO2 sequestration. The alternative bears no contemplation. The full article (including lots of pretty graphs and charts) is available here In other news, the Productivity Commission has still not released their report into global carbon pricing... Stay tuned for more exciting developments... Markos, over and out...
