So... carbon tax

[Russ]

I am a firm believer in man-made climate change.

Why?

For once in my life, I'm actually going to agree with Andrew Bolt, specifically this article. As far as I'm concerned, global warming has become the new politicized science and 90% of the people making decisions about it don't understand any of the underlying problems/science etc.

Regardless of whether or not a carbon tax will be effective and is desirable, the amount of vague guesses and approximations involved aren't what I want to see in a multi billion dollar program.

Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience

[slothpomba]

In regards to Russ and everyone in general i guess as well...

I'm not sure if you guys have seen Penn and Teller:Bullshit before. They debunk a lot of common myths like vaccinations are harmful and things like that. They did an episode with something to do with global warming, i can't remember what exactly. They talked about something called "Global Dimming".

In the 80s-90s everyone was worried that global dimming would throw our planet into a new ice age and everyone got all hyped up about it. It slowly disappeared from the media and the scare went away. Now, we have global warming.

I'm not saying it *isn't* happening right now but a lot of you, who are normally the sceptical type of people, are just accepting what you're told on faith. Most of you have not done much research yourself or looked at the numbers I’m assuming and hey, neither have i. I think it’s dangerous and silly though to just believe what you're told and take it on faith.

This has been discussed a little in another thread but sometimes the scientific community can be incredibly narrow minded once they start the ball rolling on a theory and stick with it. If you disagree, you're branded as an unscientific loony, no one will publish you (probably), few will want to hire you, ect. The first doctor who suggested other doctors wash their hands before delivering babies was laughed at. Only many years later when they realised, mothers died a lot less afterwards from infections and things like that, did they realise they were wrong. Same with the cause of ulcers, many people thought it was caused by stress or other means. This one particular scientist was convinced bacteria caused it but almost no one believed him, i think he even went to the length of infecting himself. However, in this case, he did see his efforts proved right in his lifetime.

My point is, science is great and it has unveiled many of the mysteries of life. It works very well a lot of the time but it isn't some big golden shining beacon that’s always right and you should follow every current line of thinking they have.

On a more political sense, it helps greatly to have something to talk about or a "common enemy" for the people to focus on. It helps create blocs of people to vote one way or the other and it takes some heat off the failures of politicians. It used to be the Soviet Union were the big bad guys, now terrorists. Global warming gets a shitload of press as well, i do not really think it deserves *as* much as it's getting right now. It's largely a scientific issue for the scientific community, sure it deserves press but not certainly the gangbusters coverage it is getting now. There are lots of other wars going on, children getting killed...slavery still exists in certain places...a lot of Pakistan is still feudal even! Like medieval Europe with peasants working on the lords land. I think global warming also serves as a nice distraction.

Again, i will reserve judgement just yet on whether it is a legitimate thing or not. I am leaning towards the side of caution and saying it is. Even if it isn't, we need to get off the coal sooner or later anyway. Global warming or not, it will run out. It's also not that great for the environment or for people breathing in all those coal particles and other things like that. I think that is a good reason in itself to be honest.
Just my 2c.

[Eriny]

^ This is something I have thought about before since I have quite ambivalent views on science generally, but when you think about the world, over population, depletion of natural resources, and similar things that we can directly witness, I say it is better to do something and be wrong than to do nothing and be wrong. We should be looking at and encouraging renewable energies, for instance, not just because of climate change but because of the environment generally and in order to best sustain human life. Granted, when climate change is taken out of the picture, the urgency of doing something now lessens a bit, but that does not mean that taking action isn't important. Whether or not climate change is real, there is the reality that production has a huge environmental toll that we need to be conscious of.

[cheng_ju]

also even if global warming isn't real petrol/coal/natural gas etc will definitely run out one day, so why delay the change to renewable energy sources when we know we have to one day anyway?

we can save all that petrol for making plastic bags, medicines etc.
i.e. until we find something else better to use...