The end justifies the beans – Jack (of Beanstalk fame) – Stephen Sondheim
We are likely to live ten years longer than our parents, but eight of them will be filled with pain or decrepitude. – Jane Miller
What makes a good doctor? - Patients value communication and care, colleagues seek competence and camaraderie, medical students prize cheerfulness. By contrast, admission panels focus on chemistry grades. – The Lancet
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal". Emma Goldman
"Why are you chanting 'Burn!' when you should be chanting 'Learn!' so you can 'Earn!'" – Martin Luther King
“The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible". – Albert Einstein
The laws of physics were so uniquely conducive to human existence that the universe must be "a put-up job". – Fred Hoyle
The planet does not need humans – Al Gore (and James Lee)
“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office." - Robert Frost.
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“The data doesn't (sic) matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models.” - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true."
- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
“These environmentalists are watermelons; green on the outside and red in the middle” - Warren T. Brookes
2 comments:
I am a proud environmentalist and a proud conservative. The two are not mutually exclusive. I am a vegetarian and a lover of living creatures. I believe in conserving animals.
The biggest environmental problem is human over-population. This causes loss of habitat, decline in air quality, increased extinctions, and an over-all decline in the quality of living.
Global warming is a fact, Plain and simple. I'm not going to argue the source, because that gets some people jittery and excitable. But it is a simple fact that the sun, as it ages, puts out more and more heat. The sun puts out seven percent more heat than it did during the era of the dinosaurs.
More heat from the sun = hotter temperatures on earth.
Look at the photographs of the glaciers from 100 years ago. They have retreated significantly in that time.
Such photographic proof does not rely on temperature station data, sea temperature data, or satellite data.
It just is irrefutable proof that the earth is warming. And we should be prepared to do something about it.
Curbing population growth is a first step.
We are just coming out of an ice age, so, of course, global warming is happening, but it is not a straight line curve, even less a hockey stick. There were major warm periods 1500 years ago when it was possible to cultivate Greenland and Newfoundland and grow grapes in Scotland, and there was a little Ice Age in the 17th Century when the Thames froze over. Carbon dioxide is very unlikely to be the cause because it is well buffered by blue green algae. Furthermore careful scrutiny suggests that CO2 levels succeed rather than preceed rises in global temperature. What you would expect if you have ever taken a can of coke from the fridge.
However, the IPCC report was more propaganda than data and the idea that capping CO2 production can do anything is silly.
Improvement of flood defences is obvious as we have just seen in Pakistan and conservation of forests is obvious for land stabilization and the biodiversity angle. We need to conserve and recycle scarce raw materials like copper and nickel.
Population curbs are best initiated by cultural nudges rather than Draconian laws. Nobody force Europeans to have fewer babies. Italy, that most Catholic country, has one of the lowest birth rates in the world - apart from the immigrant Africans, that is.
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