What are the options to "tackle global warming"

[Lanval]

@ Lanval:
I disagree. The problem is it's a pseudo-science and it depends on cultural prejudice what traits are better than others. Go look it up for yourself. Off-topic.

And finally, don't tell me to "go look it up" ~ either support your OWN claims, or don't make them.

L.

[chitwnvw]

He obviously meant that since Obama was the result of the merging of two vastly divergent gene pools that he is strong and superior.

[steve74baywin]

He obviously meant that since Obama was the result of the merging of two vastly divergent gene pools that he is strong and superior.

I was thinking it could be they widened the gene pool to improve a decedent to be used in such a position. Incorporating the science to benifit their control system.

[airkooledchris]

Okaaaaay. Here's a prediction : the Koch Bros. conspiracy theory will get "old" to the ideologues who resort to it whenever they have nothing else to argue, when things have happened which the Koch Bros. couldn't possibly have had anything to do with. I give it 5 years from today: april 19 2016. Until then I expect to hear about the Koch Bros. regularly, so no problem.

which is only to say people will get so sick of hearing everyone either bringing truth to light or defending their actions that they can't stand to hear even one more f'ing word about it, kinda like global warming.

I could care less which side people are on, so long as they have an opinion about it one way or the other.
In the end your either doing something about it or your wasting bandwidth/oxygen/valuable time

[Amskeptic]

I pointed out the real problem with eugenics is not the science, but the ethics/ideology of the people using it.

1. Eugenics or selective breeding in a large population is a proven method (science)

2. Eugenics was championed mostly by racists who had a lousy sense of values (not-science)

It'd be hard to imagine the downside of breeding the hip weakness out of German Shepherds though; what do we lose?

The real problem with eugenics is both the science and the ideology. You create a problem with Dane/Shepherd hips when you mistakenly selected for the "pretty look" or the "big look". Out in Muttsville, dogs of "questionable breeding" are typically healthier and possessed of nicer dispositions. I am a strong proponent of mixed breeding amongst all DNA possessors. With plant selection originally favoring the"big look" and the "pretty look", we found some nasty downsides as far as lousy weather/pest resistance. The above applies neatly to the Third Reich Aryan breeding hopes and the Royal breeding programs as well as some of the beautiful results of mixed breeding.

That comment thrown in regarding Obama, I find painfully tasteless.
Colin

[Lanval]

I pointed out the real problem with eugenics is not the science, but the ethics/ideology of the people using it.

1. Eugenics or selective breeding in a large population is a proven method (science)

2. Eugenics was championed mostly by racists who had a lousy sense of values (not-science)

It'd be hard to imagine the downside of breeding the hip weakness out of German Shepherds though; what do we lose?

The real problem with eugenics is both the science and the ideology. You create a problem with Dane/Shepherd hips when you mistakenly selected for the "pretty look" or the "big look".


That comment thrown in regarding Obama, I find painfully tasteless.
Colin

No, I get that problem, but I read it as a human rather than science problem. In other words, the choice of preferred traits is the issue, rather than the science that allows the selection. If we opted for functionality rather than beauty, we'd get a better dog. In many cases, this has worked (especially in agriculture); it does also introduce side-effects which can be a problem. That requires careful application of human experience ~ select for positive traits where positive = positive for the organism, rather than the audience.

For example, I have psoriasis. If there is any upside to this, I'm unaware of it. It doesn't offer me an side-effects which have positive values. It has several negative side effects though: psoriatic arthritis being one. So would selecting that out be a problem? I don't see it...

But let's be precise too; eugenics by that name is dead. The idea isn't though; gene therapy and cloning are genetic manipulation at the same level by other means. So I'm wondering if you're for or against gene therapy?

I'll start by noting that I'm for it, but not for the reasons you might expect (it'll help me/someone I know). Experience tells us that scientific discovery is by nature uncontainable. Once a method is discovered for doing something, the ability to do that spreads, quickly, slowly, in spurts whatever ~ it spreads.

So regardless of where you stand on gene therapy and cloning, the bottom line is that someone, somewhere is going to do it. The only questions we can apply are to what extent we can control it, who will do it, and where?

We've already put such things in place (medical practice is a very controlled business), and tend to be OK with those things because of their importance to our survival, and simultaneously their danger to our survival. (note that any lab capable of producing antibiotics is also capable of creating superbacteria). So I figure, since people are going to do it, might as well try to control the variables so we can limit the most egregious violations. It won't solve the problem though; look at the ethics of transplants. You're not supposed to sell 'em, but you can.

Best,

L.

[ruckman101]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110421/ap_ ... _green_nyc

It can be done. The costs of ignoring the problem are much higher than the costs to realize change.


neal

[turk]

Okaaaaay. Here's a prediction : the Koch Bros. conspiracy theory will get "old" to the ideologues who resort to it whenever they have nothing else to argue, when things have happened which the Koch Bros. couldn't possibly have had anything to do with. I give it 5 years from today: april 19 2016. Until then I expect to hear about the Koch Bros. regularly, so no problem.

which is only to say people will get so sick of hearing everyone either bringing truth to light or defending their actions that they can't stand to hear even one more f'ing word about it, kinda like global warming.

I could care less which side people are on, so long as they have an opinion about it one way or the other.
In the end your either doing something about it or your wasting bandwidth/oxygen/valuable time

which is to say you are doing exactly what you are complaining about Let's quit talkin' and do something about "it".

[ruckman101]

"And I think if you really start to connect the dots, you realize that we are at the kind of moment where we were when slavery was being abolished, people. There were crazies then who thought it was right to trade in human beings and own them as property. A few people thought it was wrong. It took a while, but we would never today imagine it’s right to own other human beings. Well, property in nature, property in life forms, patents on life, privatizing water, commodity trading of carbon pollution, the emissions treaty, all of that is as insane and as mad as slavery was. And we need to get out of this bondage, which has been created by a very tiny minority, who have lots to gain by raping the earth and destroying the rights of people."

Vandana Shiva. She rocks.



neal

[ruckman101]

Remember Van Jones? That "Green Czar" position was a quick stint.

A little excerpt from his keynote address at the Power Shift 2011 Conference over global/climate warming/change concerns convened in DC this past week.

"We need you to shift the power in our energy system, because we have an energy system and a civilization that is powered by death. The civilization that you live in, that you were born in, is fueled by death. That’s not hyperbole. Why do they call them fossil fuels? Because they’re living? Or because they’re dead? We take oil, a substance that has been dead for 60 million years, and we pull it out of the ground. We take coal, which has been dead for 300 million years, and we dig holes to pull it out of the ground. We pull out of the ground death, and we burn it in our engines. And we burn death in our power plants, without ceremony. And then we act shocked when, having pulled death out of the ground and burned it—we act shocked when we get death from the skies in the form of global warming and death on our oceans in the form of oil spills and death in our children’s lungs in the form of asthma and cancer. Let’s stop fueling our society based on death and start using living things. Let’s start using living things now."

Here's the full clip from Amy's Friday show.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/22/h ... _standards


neal

[turk]

Here's some predictions made on the first Earth Day back in 70. Ponder these on the day after earth day. And remember the dude who composted his girlfriend:


“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist



“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

and this classic:

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

[turk]

Remember Van Jones? That "Green Czar" position was a quick stint.

A little excerpt from his keynote address at the Power Shift 2011 Conference over global/climate warming/change concerns convened in DC this past week.

"We need you to shift the power in our energy system, because we have an energy system and a civilization that is powered by death. The civilization that you live in, that you were born in, is fueled by death. That’s not hyperbole. Why do they call them fossil fuels? Because they’re living? Or because they’re dead? We take oil, a substance that has been dead for 60 million years, and we pull it out of the ground. We take coal, which has been dead for 300 million years, and we dig holes to pull it out of the ground. We pull out of the ground death, and we burn it in our engines. And we burn death in our power plants, without ceremony. And then we act shocked when, having pulled death out of the ground and burned it—we act shocked when we get death from the skies in the form of global warming and death on our oceans in the form of oil spills and death in our children’s lungs in the form of asthma and cancer. Let’s stop fueling our society based on death and start using living things. Let’s start using living things now."

Here's the full clip from Amy's Friday show.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/22/h ... _standards


neal

Soylent Green. I keep telling people. It tastes like chicken.

[Lanval]

Here's some predictions made on the first Earth Day back in 70. Ponder these on the day after earth day. And remember the dude who composted his girlfriend:


“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist



“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

and this classic:

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

The underlying logic of this is silly. It's the same as arguing that the bacterial theory of infection is wrong because people used to talk about 'humors'.

I'm all for acknowledging the excessiveness of many of those quotes ~ it does NOT follow from their overstatement that current concerns about global warming are false. Instead, let's note what I've already argued:

1. There's a general trend
2. Human-produced CO2 is part of the problem
3. Reduce the human-produced part
4. continue as before ~ see if things get worse, better or remain the same

I can't for the life of me understand why you or anyone else would think that's "extreme".

L.

[ruckman101]

Thank goodness the federal government enacted laws in the seventies to mitigate those dire repercussions. It can be done. Of course all those environmental laws are currently under attack and being rolled back because they impede corporations' ability to profit even more. Cough, cough. Oh hey, if you're in London, best not do any rigorous exercise until the smog lifts.


neal

[Lanval]

Thank goodness the federal government enacted laws in the seventies to mitigate those dire repercussions. It can be done. Of course all those environmental laws are currently under attack and being rolled back because they impede corporations' ability to profit even more. Cough, cough. Oh hey, if you're in London, best not do any rigorous exercise until the smog lifts.


neal

Excellent point, Neal, and one I overlooked; part of the reason those dire predictions didn't come true is that people were swayed by those predictions to action rather than ambivalence. LA in the 70s was a horribly smoggy place; now it's pretty nice. Love Canal, the Hudson river ~ there are a lot of things which were dramatically improved because of the concern for those very real situations. Thank goodness for Earth Day. Now if we could just make it every day in the hearts and minds of the people, this 'global warming' ruckus would dissipate like a few stray CO2s in a healthy atmosphere.

L.