Rebuffing Bush, 132 Mayors Embrace Kyoto Rules

Kan

The thrust of your argument seems to be ‘hope for the best’ or even ‘believe’? The problem is that whatever faith you may have in science just hoping that some miracle scientific discovery will turn up and save the day is to me just the secular version of the Christian fundamentalist idea of rapture.

Any government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else. You can raise taxes or run up a deficit, but the increased expenditures could still be better spent on something else. What to me is worse it that both give out the message that there is no real need to deal with the very immediate and real problems of GW today. Just as the religious fundamentalists is apathetic because they believe they will be whisked away before the end so the secular ostrich is apathetic because he believes ‘nanotechnology’ or some such will make everything better.

I read Drexler and looked at the development of nano since ‘Engines of Creation’ was first published and it is similar in the way it is going to the earlier view of robotics, great promise that never really achieved the dream.

Now I know I could be wrong, but since I’d be gambling with the future of my child (and her children and theirs), I’d rather try and do something now rather than putting my hope in futures than I cannot predict or dreams that may never come to be.

**

You say the money that could be spent on combating GW could be spent on something else, well yes that is obvious.

But again your argument is to allow the house to deteriorate while spending the possible maintenance money on something else, because there maybe, possibly, conceivably be something, sometime, whenever in the future be a scientific way of putting things to rights.

You also have to ask is the money being spent at the moment being spent on more worthwhile things than saving the place we depend on for our survival?

**

Also to put your view that “government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else” think about cotton subsidies

“In 2001/02 (US) farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn…three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people” (my brackets)
Oxfam briefing paper ‘Cultivating Poverty’

Only a very small portion of that USAID money is spent on fighting malaria.

**

 

Kan

The thrust of your argument seems to be ‘hope for the best’ or even ‘believe’? The problem is that whatever faith you may have in science just hoping that some miracle scientific discovery will turn up and save the day is to me just the secular version of the Christian fundamentalist idea of rapture.

Any government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else. You can raise taxes or run up a deficit, but the increased expenditures could still be better spent on something else. What to me is worse it that both give out the message that there is no real need to deal with the very immediate and real problems of GW today. Just as the religious fundamentalists is apathetic because they believe they will be whisked away before the end so the secular ostrich is apathetic because he believes ‘nanotechnology’ or some such will make everything better.

I read Drexler and looked at the development of nano since ‘Engines of Creation’ was first published and it is similar in the way it is going to the earlier view of robotics, great promise that never really achieved the dream.

Now I know I could be wrong, but since I’d be gambling with the future of my child (and her children and theirs), I’d rather try and do something now rather than putting my hope in futures than I cannot predict or dreams that may never come to be.

**

You say the money that could be spent on combating GW could be spent on something else, well yes that is obvious.

But again your argument is to allow the house to deteriorate while spending the possible maintenance money on something else, because there maybe, possibly, conceivably be something, sometime, whenever in the future be a scientific way of putting things to rights.

You also have to ask is the money being spent at the moment being spent on more worthwhile things than saving the place we depend on for our survival?

**

Also to put your view that “government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else” think about cotton subsidies

“In 2001/02 (US) farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn…three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people” (my brackets)
Oxfam briefing paper ‘Cultivating Poverty’

Only a very small portion of that USAID money is spent on fighting malaria.

**

 

No offence taken, i don't operate like that.


I meant that we are here on this planet for a fleeting moment as a species..Sure we should protect those species that we effect (they never asked us to evolve in the waywe did). Many species are going extinct and many are being discoverd at the same rate, if not at a greater rate (maybe not the point i realise that).i am not saying it is a selfish act.. just i share the sentiments of kandhar.. If you 'save' the needy now they can help save the enevitable shift the kyoto agreement is trying to stave off.. whatever wil be will be..it is justa question of time. Why not plough more money in saving our species from extinction and then we can all help towards making the planet a nicer place.. Would you take issue if poorer nations use the kind of technology that creates the problem because of there poor economies ?.

 

Balbus, you missed the point entirely. Even if we assume that global warming trends continue unabated, but technological trends suddenly grind to a halt tomorrow (a remarkably inconsistent view, if you ask me), I would STILL be against Kyoto.

It's not a matter of simply waiting for a technology that will be able to stop global warming more cheaply...it's still a matter of economics: How many billions of dollars will Kyoto cost, per year of delaying global warming? Many. How many future lives will be saved by spending money on global warming today? Very few, especially compared to the large number that can be saved today with that same amount of money.

It's possible that if global warming gets very bad in the future, it will become more cost-effective to spend money on it. There's no evidence, however, that it's cheaper to fix the house today by nipping the problem in the bud,than it will be to just fix the house in the future. Global warming is not an epidimic disease that will get exponentially worse if not dealt with; the temperature will most likely steadily increase, meaning that (given the SAME level of technology we have today) it'll cost about the same to prevent a year of global warming in 2050 as it does in 2005.

Therefore, if we wait to deal with global warming, it's at worst a wash. If technology suddenly grinds to a halt and we enter a Dark Age, as you seem to believe, we can still spend money on global warming at roughly the same rate. If the technology trends continue or increase, as seems likely, we'll have much cheaper ways of dealing with this.

Nanotechnology is pretty much right on schedule for where most people expected it to be in 2005: a few commercial products, but not many. You probably won't notice nanotech much until 2015-2020, and the technology probably won't reach "maturity" until 2030 or so.

Fair enough...but I'm assuming that your children aren't the ones presently starving to death or dying of easily-treatable diseases. Not wanting to gamble with the future is a nice thought, but with all of the problems in the world some tradeoffs are necessary. Global warming is simply not (yet) a cost-effective means of saving lives, and I'd rather take the small chance that our methods of preventing global warming won't improve at all, than allow people to starve to death NOW.

 

Humans are not in danger of extinction, whereas many other species are. Much of it is due to global warming or will be. That is how my priorities are set. Help what needs helping.

 

At the rate third world countries are losing there populations and the fact we all live on a balance of trade and medical interaction..don't be so positive we won't become extinct. Before we turned up the rise and fall of species happened all the time, and continues now we are around. Most extinctions are natural or down to us humans huntings the poor animals down till there is no more. Name a species that has become extinct because of 'global warming'.

 

Humans will be extinct from global warming dipshit. Y'know it's all fine and dandy to sit here and articulate ourselves into the global "I said it better than you did" gallery : erstwhile: the real world, by that I mean tha environment which is incrementally encroaching upon your own precious skeleton and mass lump of tissue, big waterbag existance; is knocking at the door with the sales pitch of "I'm gonna hump your face right now and like it" . Get a grip man. Do you honestly believe that these half assed sympathetic fools will give two shits about your menial life in the end? It's called 'greenwashing' for the official sanctimonious let's label it and name it brand it crowd, it's called complete and utter bullshit on the streets, the real world. It's called legislation on the official end. You would like to take this into a fog bank, a rolling place of misconstrue, red herring, let's fug it up with clouds of tangent and bullshit diatribe. Hope you have a nice air conditioner because quite frankly some folks will be planning to steal it soon.

 

As usual Bush is making decisions on how much money he can put in his pocket.

 

btw... I didn't mean green_thumb when I said dipshit.

But yeah, all this talk of economic policies while ignorring the fact that the bush cabal has only proven a track record of lining their pockets. Ok so what about war, the war on drugs, no-bid contracts and more. all of these things also effect the economy in the range of billions but somehow none of that's mentioned as money sinkholes. No no, just environmental policies are bad because they use up cash. Although it is ironicly funny watching people discuss our govt as if it were an efficient thing concerned about saving money and helping all of us. la di da.

 

I was wondering who you was calling 'dipshit' thanks for clearing that up.

 

So you're saying that government mismangement of money justifies even MORE government mismanagement of money?

 

^Nope. Just saying that to discuss only one house on a whole block of houses falling down is inane. One feeds the other.

btw. matthew, mexican beer unleashes a string of profanity everytime I drink it. Nothing personal. I've found you to be quite the gentleman in discussion even though we may differ in outlook. Perhaps one day we can all meet in a pub somewhere and I'll be the guy everyone's wanting to beat up for being so loud and unruly.

 

From the way you were 'rambling' i thought you were a bit 'pissed' .. thats why i took it with good humour and did not comment till i knew who you actualy meant.

I am also the one being loud and unruly and every one wishes to beat up.. probably because i don't take shit or go along with the norm'.. nothing wrong with that i suppose .