CBC Ideas - Gwynn Dyer on Climate Wars

[Don Hudson]

woxof;

Clearly, the "not your president" comment wasn't intended as a logical argument for heaven's sake, but a few others seemed to understand what it meant...

Let me address the subtle dig first: - you think "retired folks" subscribe to the "I'm okay, Jack" kind of thinking but you important working stiffs deserve a career break and should get to continue your lifestyle just the way you've had it and just the way it's been done in society for the last hundred years or so?

Did you actually listen to any or all of the series or is the "Evil Greenie" closing runways that may affect your full block month more important?

The difficulty I have with your approach is not the argument itself in which one is invited to engage nor the fact that you accept global warming as itself, a fact, nor the interesting copy you've provided for discussion including alternate fuels etc, but that the enframing of the dialogue being advanced in your argument has not exceeded your career boundaries.

That is what you are saying, supported by posting material which says global warming is not man-made, the implication being, we can, (or may as well), continue the party instead of embracing "Ugly Green", though we can assuage our consciences by reducing pollution elsewhere.

I suspect what you say and fear may be true but if the arguments you advance and figures you quote about manmade global warming turn out to be true, and the success rate of the Green Revolution is limited to a few unimportant corners of the economy as you and business (and your president) want, you and the rest of the world will be out of work anyway. I think you can rest assured that the corporate lobby which has been vastly successful so far, will ensure that "jobs stay" and that we can all trade credits until the "market" closes for good.

Your concerns regarding the third world are discussed in the podcast, with a novel notion of addressing the issue of credits, restricting third world countries to certain levels of emmision now that the first world has had a good go at it, and so on.

However, if career and future employment is your fear, global warming isn't the issue you should be concerned with.

I strongly suspect woxof, that "your" career will be far more deeply affected by the actions, and inactions, of your favourite president and his greedy bagmen (who rightly belong in jail) than anything a bunch of ragtag marginalized sign-carriers objecting to a third runway in Sipson, Harmondsworth and West Drayton who even The Guardian has given up for lost.

The third runway, now passed and underway, will destroy a territory continuously occupied for over five hundred years - Bath Road today was an old Roman Road. The "Rabid Greenies" are local homeowners who were there before the deHavilland Comet and pub-owners who were there before Cromwell's time. One can sympathize with their point of view even as the world's economy turns to ashes in corporate leaders' and Milton Friedman's hands.

My point is, your arguments seem a hodge-podge of feelings, internet quotes and claims that center around the possibility that your career may disappear if the Greenies have their terrible ways when in fact you are saying that global warming is a reality but the cause isn't human. And?

That said woxof, I will tell you that I particularly like the movie quote you provided, but I would argue that we're all organisms first...nobody "made" something called "mammal" - that is a peculiarity of our human naming system, but, (and the actual term doesn't matter), we are all "organisms" on an extremely rare and precariously-balanced bit of dust the brief circumstances upon which life itself is wholly contingent and by which it may evaporate "tomorrow" without notice, tear or loss to the universe. All the rest is biologically-based languaging which permits all manner of illusion of purpose and importance.

I see Boeing has just lost 16 more 787 orders from Russia and Dubai.

THAT, woxof, is the harbinger of change for your career.

But change is inevitable, isn't it?

[Guest woxof]

Actually it is a lot more people careers are on the line than just myself and in a lot more industries than aviation. They may have something in reply to "And?"

The length of time lived near Heathrow has nothing to do with the the protesters shutting down various airports all over England in the name of global warming. I'm sure you will find plenty of those arrested live nowhere near Heathrow. They are part of a movement to shut down aviation and have succeeded in increasing environmental taxes on aviation.

And the short term economic outlook and the reasons for it have nothing to do with the points I have been putting forth on this thread.

Aside from pointing out these minor things, I have little to add to my arguments except that Ronald Reagan was my favourite president in my lifetime.

Woxof.....Ahhh, the good old days.

http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/MorePic...r-880-smoke.jpg

http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Navy/...next_id=0398471

[FireFox]

Interesting...

The Amazing Story Behind The Global Warming Scam

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

[AME]

For those who truely feel the need to be green, all it takes is a little cash

http://www.zeroghg.com/purchase_carbon_credits.html

[mrlupin]

Interesting...

The Amazing Story Behind The Global Warming Scam

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

Do any of the articles pointing to the opposite information also interest you?

[Mitch Cronin]

Ronald Reagan was my favourite president in my lifetime.

Somehow, I would have guessed at that.

...by the way... do all these carreers you believe are threatened by "the greenies" still exist after the planet is uninhabitable?

[Guest woxof]

So now the planet is going to be uninhabitable. The first prediction I have heard of that any other similar predictions?

I am actually just starting to listen to the original podcast. Here is the high potential future scenario so far. The EU has broken up. Northern Italy and Spain will have nuclear weapons soon to threaten their northern neighbours so they can get some food. The rest of the world is a disaster(much of it is anyway right now). All this by 2046 affecting your kids.

So we must do something drastic now. Ground most of aviation no doubt along with much of the rest of our economy....but the third world like China and India need do little according the the Green types. Of course we already know that, according to the NOAA that a total stop in CO2 release will have no effect for 1,000 years(as previously posted).

Perhaps Mr. Dyer will be more realistic in the rest of his podcast when I listen to it(is there any video by the way?) and tell us that much the problem is overpopulation in the third world and drastic efforts need to be done to reduce their population. Too many mouths to feed in a long era where global warming has started well in advance of the industrial age.

Some third world countries have been able to curb population growth ending their malthusian future. Much more can be done in a relatively short time period with other countries. Family planning through the U.N. This of course is not a solution to Global warming, but an important element in reducing the future conflict scenarios envisaged by Mr. Dyer.

Shrill statements about earth being uninhabitable and EU nations threatening each other with nuclear weapons are ridiculous.

Woxof....Anyone out there have copies of David Suzuki's previous global ice age scenarios and predictions.

[FireFox]

Do any of the articles pointing to the opposite information also interest you?

Sure. It's always good to view both sides of an argument. N'est-ce pas?

Is that what you're doing Lupin? How about Hadji's other references, looked at them?

[mrlupin]

Sure. It's always good to view both sides of an argument. N'est-ce pas?

Is that what you're doing Lupin? How about Hadji's other references, looked at them?

I always try to look up sources when I am uncertain of data.

In the case of Hadji, at first, I looked up his first two sources. Midterm exams are approaching fast and I do not have the time to review all of them.

Daily tech

An article, not a research paper…The graphic does show a yearly drop, we will have to see if it will be sustained. There are spikes all over the graphic, that is why you try to look at the general tendency instead of the immediate picture.

NPR

I pointed out to various points in the article in a previous post.

Next one…

Alfred P. Sloan is the name of an ex GM CEO that has been dead since 1966. He founded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Using his name under a post looks good but he remains deceased.

Lindzen, Richard S.,

This one seems to be a bit more decorated but none the less contested and has accepted money from companies with interest that are questionable.

Lindzen was one of several scientists who appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary that aired in the UK in March, 2007 on Channel 4. The film was critical of the IPCC and many scientific opinions on climate change. The film has been criticized for misuse of data and out of date research, for using misleading arguments, and for misrepresenting the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Ross Gelbspan wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was very critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan claimed that Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; and his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."

In Aug 2006, according to Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, Lindzen said that he had accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees, from "fossil-fuel types" in the 1990s and had not received any money from these since.

According to a PBS Frontline report, "Dr. Lindzen is a member of the Advisory Council of the Annapolis Center for Science Based Public Policy, which has received large amounts of funding from ExxonMobil and smaller amounts from Daimler Chrysler, according to a review [of] Exxon's own financial documents and 990s from Daimler Chrysler's Foundation. Lindzen has also been a contributor to the Cato Institute, which has taken $90,000 from Exxon since 1998, according to the website Exxonsecrets.org and a review Exxon financial documents. He is also a contributor for the George C. Marshall Institute."

I haven’t gone to the Argo project yet. I will try to at some point.

[Don Hudson]

woxof;

I quite realize that it is a lot of "careers" and not just yours but the dialogue was so enframed.

There is no video with CBC Ideas programs - it's radio. And it isn't all leftwingcommiepinko thinking either - you might find commonality some of the programs. You may find Suzuki's work there in the archives.

Aside from pointing out these minor things, I have little to add to my arguments except that Ronald Reagan was my favourite president in my lifetime.

I don't think you fully understand the underpinnings of the economic crisis now enveloping the world. It didn't begin with the sub-prime problem. It began with your all-time favourite president, Mr. Reagan, and his collaborator, Ms. Thatcher who began the march towards neoliberalism - the freeing of the US (and British) economies of "regulatory interference" so that Milton Friedman's (and Hayek's and others') free-wheeling capitalism could do what it was designed to do - appropriate and concentrate wealth while eschewing the public well-being in favour of private well-being - the beginnings of legalized larceny - a return to a quasi-feudal society. The seeds of collapse were built into the US economy during Reagan's presidency and so too, the threat to "your career".

In order to advance your points, I think some appreciation of this history is needed even though you may disagree with such history and I don't sense the former is the case. In your various responses outside the interesting NP articles you've quoted, you seem to be all over the map in your arguments so it's terribly difficult to understand what you're trying to point to.

There are many texts, beginning with some from thirty years ago, which reference these notions and take them into important and relevant discussions on such policies, eventually providing some hints on why and how the present crisis occurred.

If you don't at least read in these areas to appreciate this history and instead lean to merely romanticizing Reagan, Bush and fundamentalist conservatism, (which isn't "Conservatism"...the original concept of which I actually like) then the discussion cannot connect. If "what is and has been" cannot be at least acknowledged in terms of economic policy changes enacted during Reagan's presidency, then there is no discussion to engage - a mere exchange of opinions is only temporarily interesting. You must understand that warnings of collapse were issued as long ago as ten years by prescient economists but too many on the "bridge of the ship" were both intoxicated and addicted to the "never-ending" supply of money, low interest rates and spectacular growth in profits in what has turned from a manufacturing economy to an economy based upon short-term speculation, to the point where if a company didn't provide double-digit returns, investors would instantly punish the stock. Planning in such an environment is impossible but this is a whole different discussion.

These are historical facts which do not find expression merely in marginal journals of left wing-nuts and other economic crackpots. This is mainstream thinking which is only now being more widely understood for it's intent now that the bubble has burst - big time.

You have of course, every right to believe in Reagan, Bush and ultra-conservatism but I question the basis for so believing. You (and many) do so contra both history and underlying causes of the present historical collapse. You simply cannot make an argument that both Reagan and Bush (and, to be sure, most including myself include Clinton here), are the saviours and the world economy failed despite their efforts and that they are not directly to blame for the present crisis. Simply re-packaging your views doesn't make the argument any more convincing than it was when all this began. Events since October have already washed over those kinds of understandings.

Mr. Dyer's "realism" isn't the issue here. The issue is discussion of serious understandings. An economy focussed entirely on growth, (which, as your own quote from that film states, is what cancer does within it's host), is a model which, in a finite system, does not work and which, like cancer, will kill it's host. Whether Mr. Dyer and other greenies, as you are wont to [inappropriately] label them are right in the details doesn't matter - point, counterpoint is an academic discussion on board the Titanic. The issues were being pointed out when I first taught "environmental issues" to elementary school kids in the early '70's where everybody was "into" pollution - images of smoke stacks on every 3-ring project binder. Whether scientists have the details right and whether the now-affirmed global warming is manmade or caused by the ocean's CO2 saturation levels or volcanic activity, is academic. We can at best see through the trend-glass, darkly and the trends indicate towards uninhabitability for present life forms, not tomorrow, not in 2046 but what about 3000?...

Mankind has a remarkable and demonstrated ability to adapt to climates, to food production needs and to sustainable methods of living in a finite system, when the factors governing continued existence are sufficiently clear. Higher levels of water will cover/destroy much arable land. Fish intolerant of a 2C increase in water temperature will die off - our food chain begins with krill and if they go, our own existence becomes ever more contingent. We may have confidence that we can overcome such changes in our physical/technical ability to feed, house, and clothe those in affected areas. Whether such victims of environmental disasters will be labeled as "unworthy" as per President Bush's labeling of the victims of Katrina, or not remains to be seen. Perhaps those in today's "first world" will be tomorrow's third world and we'll be those labeled as "unworthy" of the attention of the "wealthy nations of Asia?"... Just speculating...

Five-hundred and fifty million years ago, the pre-Cambrian "life explosion" was brought to an end in a mass-extinction of what was up until that point a very rich and diverse life mass on earth. Evidence of this rich life mass and it's subsequent mass extinction is still available in a few places on earth including the Burgess Shale near Field, BC, (which I climbed to a few years ago). Mass exctinctions are not uncommon, geologically speaking, in the time periods under discussion. Were they caused by "global warming"? - an asteroid hit? - volcanic activity? It was sudden, relatively speaking - why it occured, we don't know. Today we have slightly better means by which we can monitor climate trends and respond, perhaps even successfully, to continue the species.

But such a possibility is anything but preordained or willed. The truly frightening aspect is, many believe that because we are somehow "deserving", that some external force or god will rescue us just in time, so we can blythely party on. It is important to comprehend that we alone are responsible, within the realm of the possible, for the contingencies of our survival and that there is no Valhalla awaiting "the annointed". We are, collectively, it, here and now. This is all there is. And if we wait because we believe the former and that somehow mankind is annointed, the very least risk is, "that is all there was".

I take Mr. Dyer's comments and the entire series seriously only because other points of view have a clear economic agenda which intends to dismiss any view which gets in the way of "progress and profit". Black-and-white though that view may be, it at least provides clear background for discussion. Presently, all that matters is profit and our careers so horrendously skewed is our world-view towards personal exchange and advantage. I think the Ideas program at least is capable of shaking some of these views loose so that openess to the larger factors at work may obtain.

[Guest woxof]

Thanks for your comments Don. I have nothing to add. Concerning the political and economic situation, it is somewhat off subject and will put in a link to another thread and a biography on Reagan by a well respected historian objectively examining the positive and the negative.

http://forum.aeforum.net/index.php?showtopic=387291

[Lakelad]

Whether such victims of environmental disasters will be labeled as "unworthy" as per President Bush's labeling of the victims of Katrina, or not remains to be seen.

Seem to be unable find any reference to Bush labeling Katrina victims as unworthy. Could you possibly point me in the right direction?

[Don Hudson]

woxof - You're welcome - the dialogue's the thing, not "winning over".

I'm curious - why isn't Nixon one of your heroes?

For me, it isn't about "Reagan", his qualities, his charismatic personna, his popularity or his faults of which, for the position he occupied, were substantial and significant, (as were Bush II's). It is not even about Iran-Contra, a clear if not rare example of long-standing US Foreign Policy laid bare; it is about economic policies which favoured the rich, which, after government vacated the responsibility, largely though not wholly destroyed the only democratic institutions available to ordinary people - the unions, (yes, I know the objections to this assessment and do not wholly disagree with the views formerly expressed here but only compare such views with where government has gone since the early 70's - to corporatism, not populism), and laid the foundations, through rampant de-regulation, for the present crisis.

No history of Reagan (or Bush) can erase that without becoming revisionist history. Conrad Black has written a reportedly brilliant biography of Roosevelt and now of Nixon. Given Black's status and values as well as his obvious capabilities for breadth of comprehension and summary, it might be worth reading - we cannot dismiss Nixon out of hand, but he is also the one who dismantled Bretton-Woods, (thus facilitating currency speculation).

The question is, "Why the crash?" The question arose from the original discussion on global warming and what proposed solutions may do to our economy, our lives, our futures. They are huge questions, unencompassable by most and unpredictable by all. I raised the notion of the crash because it seemed to me that the notion of global warming was being implicated in job-loss where perhaps recent events may be eclipsing the very long-term effects of earth's or our activities. We haven't even broached the subject of the rate at which the earth's lungs, (as we anthropomorphically term them in view of our particular needs for oxygen), the Amazon jungles, are being destroyed in favour of commerce.

In the end, I don't think you'll have to worry about "The Greenies". Not only are they out-represented in pro-corporate governments which aren't even aware they are swimming in the neoliberal river because history of such has been lost as those who lived and thought during the 50's and 60's retire or die off, but because populations themselves are not willing to trade "lifestyle" for survival and Asia and India sees pollution as their "right", given the West's kick at the economic cat.

I think the "Climate Wars" series posits some serious questions, some serious solutions and is at least worth listening to. Catastrophe Forecasting may be part of the rhetorical technique and in some models is supportable. The key is, are we willing to roll the dice?

[Don Hudson]

Lakelad;

Seem to be unable find any reference to Bush labeling Katrina victims as unworthy. Could you possibly point me in the right direction?

The term, "unworthy" was never uttered by President Bush but it didn't have to be. You did observe Washington's "emergency" response to the victims of Katrina, did you not? Was it mere incompetence that the most powerful nation on earth that can accomplish whatever it wants in terms of Shock and Awe half way around the world could not organize a useable biffy in the French Quarter let alone an organized rescue and relief effort for the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes, possessions, livelihoods and futures even to this day? The fact that victims of Katrina disappeared from mainstream media so swiftly is another key point - nobody, certainly Bush, cares about "poor, uneducated black people" when there's a war on elsewhere. The history of Washington's failure to heed the warnings of dyke failure simply reinforce the notion that priorites for domestic well-being were low in particular areas. Do you think that such an approach would be acceptable in the north? Was the response then and now acceptable? Would such a response be acceptable in Canada?

One needn't utter the words. One only need act, or in this case omit action, in a certain manner. Bush, then FEMA, did.

[AME]

One needn't utter the words. One only need act, or in this case omit action, in a certain manner. Bush, then FEMA, did.

I'm not defending the man by any stretch of the imagination, but how much of lack of response could be attributed to inter agency bureaucracy?

I would hazard to guess that the US president has a lot more flexability to operate outside the US borders than he (and someday she) has to operate within.

[Don Hudson]

AME - oh, I think a lot can be attributed initially - it was indeed a confused and incompetent bureaucratic response at first.

But the President has the power to bust some ass to make things happen for those to whom he is fully responsible in terms of assistance and then hauled in those responsible, for a reaming out. Bush didn't do any of that and only acted after it started becoming a public relations disaster, not the natural disaster it already was.

The question of "free reign" in the conduct of an overseas invasion is an interesting one. First, it is in the Pentagon's eternal interest to promote and support such operations for their own sake - it is a well-understood fact and phenomenon that much of US foreign policy was being influenced/directed by the Pentagon, (at least in the reading I'd done) and that Bush was a bystander in others' agendas including Cheney's, (we may hope, though dimly, that more may come out on this in any war-crimes trials over Guantanamo that those lower down in the administration may face).

Second, many of the National Guard who were, after all, "national" in intent, were in Iraq so resources were an issue.

In the end, the President is the Commander-in-Chief, and Bush wasn't.

[Guest woxof]

Nixon was before my time I'm afraid and I said "in my lifetime". I think you will find that this causes of this economic crash will very complex and will involve more than one side of the political spectrum(to the dismay of those who might use it as a political agenda).

I don't pretend to know the why's and how's about it's causes and will wait for non-partisan experts down the road to decide with the expectation that there will be differences of opinions.

http://www.nysun.com/arts/ronald-reagans-world/78821/

"After all, Mr. Wilentz is not only one of America's pre-eminent historians, but a well-known Democratic activist..."

"What will particularly upset many partisan Democrats is Mr. Wilentz's conclusion that Reagan stands with presidents such as Jackson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln as a leader "who for better or worse have put their political stamp indelibly on their time."

"Mr. Wilentz sees him as a strong and necessary president. Reagan's "ability to dispense with dogma ... and negotiate with Gorbachev helped bring an end to a nuclear arms race that had terrified the world for forty years." Indeed, Mr. Wilentz goes so far as to call the end of the Cold War "one of the greatest achievements by any president of the United States — and arguably the great single presidential achievement since 1945."

"His final judgment is that Reagan was great because he understood American politics, and aside from Iran-Contra, he "practiced the art of compromise shrewdly." He had more of an effect on the temper of the times and the shift of the nation to the right, thereby "reshaping the basic terms on which politics and government would be conducted long after he left office."

[Don Hudson]

woxof - thanks, excellent article - I think the Wilentz book is worth purchasing and reading - it's always subtle, is it not?

Reagan truly understood American politics as Jimmy Carter did not. The anti-intellectual nature of America has historical roots going back to before 1776. Reagan knew that simplicity of vision, clarity of issue and appeal to the flag were magical in popular appeal...not much in terms of subtle comprehension or debate but a lot on ceremony and panache, and it worked well. Carter, a cerebral president was never able to reach hearts, but he certainly knew the truth of the U.S.A., it's warts and strong points. I don't think it was an accident that Iran released the hostages within days of Reagan's inauguration as a reminder of Carter's disastrous desert rescue effort and foreign policy "failure". To me however, (and reading some of his past speeches", he had a very clear grasp of the economic and social issues the U.S. faced but simply couldn't reach the American people.

Bush appealed to the same base instincts for showmanship and politicking that Reagan invoked but had neither the talent, the experience, the personna or the willingness to make a show of it - sadly, it took two terms before the American people were finally forced to psychologically dump their denial and see Bush for what he was.

[AME]

that more may come out on this in any war-crimes trials over Guantanamo that those lower down in the administration may face

And that is why the US refuses to recognize the world court

[chockalicious]

I'm not defending the man by any stretch of the imagination, but how much of lack of response could be attributed to inter agency bureaucracy?

I would hazard to guess that the US president has a lot more flexability to operate outside the US borders than he (and someday she) has to operate within.

If Bush had appointed someone who had experience in emergency management instead of a political crony whose only leadership experience was as the head of The Arabian Horse Association than maybe the bureaucracy would have had a better response

You're doing a heckuva job Brownie...

[Don Hudson]

And that is why the US refuses to recognize the world court

Precisely.

Chock - I think the point is relevant - that is, in part, from where the failure to respond emerges. Wikipedia has a very good summary of the issues.

[chockalicious]

Don - completey agree.

My point is that the appointment of Michael Brown, like so many of the Bush appointments, further set back the bureaucracies abilty to respond as they were hamstrung by incompetent leadership.

[Don Hudson]

Incompetence gathers incompetence around itself so that it may shine brighter.

I think Bush was frankly too lazy to be bothered watching what his lieutenants did without his knowledge - certainly Cheney was an extremely crafty and dishonest man in the way he achieved the VP position; notwithstanding obvious incompetencies, the stench of pork-barrelling in Iraq and Katrina alone with Haliburton leaves one dismayed at what else went on as these people occupied the halls of power. The key is not only the manufacture of consent, which Walter Lippman and Edward Bernays outlined as to what must be done to control "the rabble" and that Chomsky later outlined in his CBC Ideas Massey Lecture series entitled Neccessary Illusions (as well as the book by he and Ed Herman entitled, "Manufacturing Consent"), but the key today it is the manufacture of crisis to which those in power are then able to legitimize their pre-planned "solutions". To get Hussein, WMD's are manufactured. The dishonesty is as stunning today as when Colin Powell made his famous claims at the UN. It was BS even then and if I understood what was going on, (because I paid attention to what Hans Blix had to say in his interim reports), so did a lot of other people who were in positions of influence. The U.S. was spoiling for war regardless of the facts.

It is simply good marketing technique; - in fact, that is how sections on some books dealing with this phase of the Iraq war title the chapters. Create a need, then provide the answer. Assuaging fear may mean we have to give up civil liberties and certain hard-won freedoms, but those terrorists behind all walls, trees and rocks must be found and dealt with.

Manufactured Fears, Manufactured Needs, Manufactured Solutions - now that, woxof, IS a proven scam.

For a very interesting view, pre-war, take a look at this Charlie Rose interview with a younger Michael Ignatieff and David Sanger of the New York Times, March, 2003. Ignatieff's article, referenced in the interview, can be found here.

[Check Pilot]

Don,

Your quote: "Manufactured Fears, Manufactured Needs, Manufactured Solutions - now that, woxof, IS a proven scam."

"Global warming" and it's new daughter "Climate Change", now that "global warming" seems to have been given the heave ho, are exactly what the lefties are so longingly looking for to keep up the stream of dollars to themselves.

This is the old snake oil salesman's method of terrifying the great unwashed into prying money out of an unsuspecting public. Today it's not just one guy doing it to us, it's now become the special interest groups that are now more forcefully convincing the masses that they are right because of the intense pressure of the (mostly) left wing media buying into this junk because of their need to sell advertising to a rapidly diminishing audience.

Just follow the money as my Dad always used to say and the real truth will eventually show up.

I'm not at all convinced we have a "crisis" with our climate because of all the proven or unproven theories and short term "facts" that get fed to us by the media.

You and I can punch up anything on the internet about "global warming" or "climate change" and get tens of thousands of pages on the subjects.

I just prefer to look out the window and then go outside to only find that nothing is different from any other year I've been alive for the last 61. Politics, fearmongering and experience have shown me that more and more folks are getting sucked in by this unfounded and, in my opinion, groundless waste of time. All of it shoved down the throats of young folks that are unwilling to buy anything but what is found here on the internet.

It seems to me that very few in the great unwashed young masses has the energy, time or initiative to REALLY go out and find the real truth anymore, so the horrible global "Climate Change" or it's daddy the "Global warming" scam will remain at large for the "harbinger of doom" notes forever for future left wing political agendas whenever they run out of other stuff and something else needs a refresher because of a lack of another good manufactured "crisis".

[Mitch Cronin]

If'n you righties are gonna start hatin' all us lefties so bad we gotta all find ar scatterguns t'defend arselves.... then how's the folks who mops up gonna know who wuz the rednecks?