your thoughts on this so called global warming propaganda

[Collin Li]

Note that I do not actually have a position on global warming. I believe the magnitude of it, if it is true, is small, which is why I see no real reason for global governance to take it into their own hands.

I have a position on pollution, and I have posted my 'policy outline' on the first page of this thread.

I am just picking apart the logical failures of the arguments in this thread (who happen to be global warming supporters for now). I would not go as far as to say that therefore there is no global warming. I would just say that it is unproven.

[Mao]

but it has been empirically proven that the Earth's lifecycle has been disrupted, majorly

whilst I do not agree with the governments' actions in signing this agreement and putting that tax and making us everyday people pay for things that don't actually matter, I refuse to be ignorant enough to say "global warming is a fake"

much of it *is* propaganda, but arguing against it will give exactly the opposite message, and that's the one we want to avoid most. I would choose a more conservative pathway than continuous exploitation of resources, even though the prior is unfair to some degree.

something ought to be done, just that our current government has an inability to understand it enough to deal with it. the politicians of this generation I think will do a lot better, at least better than the Very Old Men In Ties.

something is happening to the climate, and any sensible person should know to put a stop to possible causes and find out why, then change their ways. but what is being suggested by hard [i hope this is not a strawman] is that we continue the exploitation of resources with full vigour, all in the name of economy and wealth [i do realise they are not the same thing ]

I'd like to ask, what if you are wrong? what's your backup? it's not proven that "global warming" is because of human impact, but that does not conclusively prove it is not. if we don't do something about it now, the stakes are that we might lose the planet. are you prepared to take that risk?

yes, the actions of the government are criticisable, but they are also the lesser of the two evils.

[Collin Li]

Actually, no one was disputing global warming itself. He was disputing the global warming propaganda. That is, the idea that we should tax carbon emissions to save this problem. The question is, will it actually save this problem?

Also, you pose a false dichotomy. There is no reason to prance around and be prude in what we should criticise, to protect the naivety of "the lesser of two evils." Those aren't the only two options, you know it. Just because what we are saying may threaten the global tax viewpoint, it doesn't mean we are taking the "opposite" viewpoint that there should be no action. Even if the global tax viewpoint was the lesser of those two evils (ignoring other options), we should still criticise it if necessary, while making it clear that we do not condone a worse alternative.

What I believe is that global governance is dangerous, and I believe the majority of the effects of pollution are localised, and hence can be dealt with locally. I actually believe we are better off with the other extreme (no tax), because global governance is just going to be a massive bureaucracy that would continue to expand to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. Ideally though, I condone some tax -- set locally and appropriately to reflect the social cost of pollution.

[Mao]

Actually, no one was disputing global warming itself. He was disputing the global warming propaganda. That is, the idea that we should tax carbon emissions to save this problem. The question is, will it actually save this problem?

ha, so i did set up a straw man. apologies

no, in my opinion carbon emissions won't do much to save the environment. a few things that i've read told me that CO2 has little to do with global warming. much much more research is needed in this area, and i think its the government taking the simple way out: "yes, we are doing something about it, we're even taking money from you to do so."

[hard]

I have read his post and who exactly is 'hard', a scientist? i doubt it. there is no source of his posts.

Half of hard's posts seem to be plagiarised verbatim from websites:

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2005/08/pollution_in_ch.html
http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/a/run_out_of_oil.htm

well sorry for not putting up the links but that doesn't actually matter. Half your points lacoste are unjustified, unrealistic and you clearly have not got an open mind. You are mentioning all the thins that you see on the media; i.e global warming is causing melting of ice caps, tornadoes etc etc. But you cannot seem to present an argument that justifies the governments actions on actually blaming all the global warming to CO2 emissions by advertising blatant advertisement when clearly it doesn't have much research to back up its "theories," not FACTS!. Plus why do you care were i got some of the info from. Is that what you've been trying to for one hour, DECIPHER THE MYSTERY OF HARDS INFORMATION! honestly lacoste your not even worth having an argument with because you clearly are very conservative, have no credible facts and is just repeating what i, you and any one else hears on the news.
And i agree with Mao, something is happening with out climate as it always does. Since you brought up he topic of weather lacoste may i remind you of the ice age. We're industrial humans alive back then, uh don't think so my friend. This is a stupid comment anyway but i had to say it because of people like you. I also agree with Mao saying that government is taking the easy way out and it is, the chemical make up of what is causing the depletion of our ozone is a difficult science, i believe, and saying CO2 is the cause is a bad as blasphemy as they would say Not really but have an open mind lacoste and don't be confined to your little world of happiness's with no political lies.

[Mao]

I have read his post and who exactly is 'hard', a scientist? i doubt it. there is no source of his posts.

Half of hard's posts seem to be plagiarised verbatim from websites:

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2005/08/pollution_in_ch.html
http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/a/run_out_of_oil.htm

well sorry for not putting up the links but that doesn't actually matter. Half your points lacoste are unjustified, unrealistic and you clearly have not got an open mind. You are mentioning all the thins that you see on the media; i.e global warming is causing melting of ice caps, tornadoes etc etc. But you cannot seem to present an argument that justifies the governments actions on actually blaming all the global warming to CO2 emissions by advertising blatant advertisement when clearly it doesn't have much research to back up its "theories," not FACTS!. Plus why do you care were i got some of the info from. Is that what you've been trying to for one hour, DECIPHER THE MYSTERY OF HARDS INFORMATION! honestly lacoste your not even worth having an argument with because you clearly are very conservative, have no credible facts and is just repeating what i, you and any one else hears on the news.
And i agree with Mao, something is happening with out climate as it always does. Since you brought up he topic of weather lacoste may i remind you of the ice age. We're industrial humans alive back then, uh don't think so my friend. This is a stupid comment anyway but i had to say it because of people like you. I also agree with Mao saying that government is taking the easy way out and it is, the chemical make up of what is causing the depletion of our ozone is a difficult science, i believe, and saying CO2 is the cause is a bad as blasphemy as they would say Not really but have an open mind lacoste and don't be confined to your little world of happiness's with no political lies.

1. you quoted jcc, not lacoste

2. you have employed ad hominem as part of your rebuttal, which is utterly ridiculous when you want to be reasonable. attacking the man as opposed to his argument is plainly fallacious and not constructive to any discussion. I do suggest you take that back.


3. i am not saying that the climate is changing "as it always does", this time is clearly more drastic than the last few hundred thousand years [as shone by glacial ice cores]. My position is that the contention of people like you and the way you go about convincing other people is completely counter-functional to helping this climate change, and worse than what the government is doing.

[Collin Li]

What do you mean by "what the government is doing?"

I don't actually know much about it. I would think that the government doing nothing is probably better than the government doing something. Let's see... the most popular idea to limit carbon emissions right now is a cap-and-trade model. This is just a transfer of wealth to corporate interests -- it will rise prices for consumers (this is inevitable) but does not actually return the social costs of pollution to society!

I am suspicious of minor externalities that call for great government intervention. Most of the times they do things a lot worse than if things were just left alone. Once again, this doesn't mean I advocate one or the other. There are other options.

I don't agree that hard is doing harm by his arguments. His arguments are just skeptical towards the carbon emissions idea. He may trivialise global warming, but think about what you would do? Nothing. Nothing until you actually are confident about what is causing it, right? Same thing.

He is also capable of presenting a balanced viewpoint, if that counts for anything, as he supported the idea of individual governments setting their own taxes without global pressure and coercion.

[Mao]

the government is slapping the carbon emission tax, for example. [thats as in depth as my knowledge into that goes ] to be honest, i'm not so much worried about what the government is doing.

as for hard's arguments, the trivialisation of Global warming is a little hard to accept for me. though I cannot do anything about global warming, its effects and its significance should not be overlooked.

apply the same argument to searching for cure of diseases. would you say that because the Govt.'s spendings on awareness campaigns doesn't cure the disease, the disease can therefore be trivialised because there's no cure for it [yet]?

we shouldn't stop searching, and trivialising this issue doesn't help

[Collin Li]

How about the fact that everyone eventually dies? Global warming might be something we can solve, it might be something we have to accept, but for now it means we have to de-clout the political world from a lot of the junk that is advocating global governance and carbon emissions restrictions without good reason.

That said, there may be other good reasons to advocate it (local air quality, acid rain, etc.), but it doesn't mean we should play along with this bullshit just to get it installed. I'm mainly scared of global governance.

[hard]

I have read his post and who exactly is 'hard', a scientist? i doubt it. there is no source of his posts.

Half of hard's posts seem to be plagiarised verbatim from websites:

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2005/08/pollution_in_ch.html
http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/a/run_out_of_oil.htm

well sorry for not putting up the links but that doesn't actually matter. Half your points lacoste are unjustified, unrealistic and you clearly have not got an open mind. You are mentioning all the thins that you see on the media; i.e global warming is causing melting of ice caps, tornadoes etc etc. But you cannot seem to present an argument that justifies the governments actions on actually blaming all the global warming to CO2 emissions by advertising blatant advertisement when clearly it doesn't have much research to back up its "theories," not FACTS!. Plus why do you care were i got some of the info from. Is that what you've been trying to for one hour, DECIPHER THE MYSTERY OF HARDS INFORMATION! honestly lacoste your not even worth having an argument with because you clearly are very conservative, have no credible facts and is just repeating what i, you and any one else hears on the news.
And i agree with Mao, something is happening with out climate as it always does. Since you brought up he topic of weather lacoste may i remind you of the ice age. We're industrial humans alive back then, uh don't think so my friend. This is a stupid comment anyway but i had to say it because of people like you. I also agree with Mao saying that government is taking the easy way out and it is, the chemical make up of what is causing the depletion of our ozone is a difficult science, i believe, and saying CO2 is the cause is a bad as blasphemy as they would say Not really but have an open mind lacoste and don't be confined to your little world of happiness's with no political lies.

1. you quoted jcc, not lacoste

2. you have employed ad hominem as part of your rebuttal, which is utterly ridiculous when you want to be reasonable. attacking the man as opposed to his argument is plainly fallacious and not constructive to any discussion. I do suggest you take that back.


3. i am not saying that the climate is changing "as it always does", this time is clearly more drastic than the last few hundred thousand years [as shone by glacial ice cores]. My position is that the contention of people like you and the way you go about convincing other people is completely counter-functional to helping this climate change, and worse than what the government is doing.

First of all you rodomontade that i am attacking individuals rathar than the argument itself, but the matter of fact is you are actually ambuscading me rathar than my argument also, Mao. You imply that i was employing ad hominem, when really ad hominem is defined: "consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim"- when really i was backing up my argument rathar than attacking the individual himself/herself.
Can i ask, why Mao do you state that it is people like me who are not helping climate change, and even worse than the government when really from Ab initio i clearly laid out my view that global warming is out of proportion and not as the government, nor media put it out to be. I am not hear to try and help climate change because that is asking the impossible; climate change in ineluctable but the way politics has taken this issue is clearly wrong.

[Mao]

First of all you rodomontade that i am attacking individuals rathar than the argument itself, but the matter of fact is you are actually ambuscading me rathar than my argument also, Mao. You imply that i was employing ad hominem, when really ad hominem is defined: "consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim"- when really i was backing up my argument rathar than attacking the individual himself/herself.

see for yourself:

well sorry for not putting up the links but that doesn't actually matter. Half your points lacoste are unjustified, unrealistic and you clearly have not got an open mind. You are mentioning all the thins that you see on the media; i.e global warming is causing melting of ice caps, tornadoes etc etc. But you cannot seem to present an argument that justifies the governments actions on actually blaming all the global warming to CO2 emissions by advertising blatant advertisement when clearly it doesn't have much research to back up its "theories," not FACTS!. Plus why do you care were i got some of the info from. Is that what you've been trying to for one hour, DECIPHER THE MYSTERY OF HARDS INFORMATION! honestly lacoste your not even worth having an argument with because you clearly are very conservative, have no credible facts and is just repeating what i, you and any one else hears on the news.
And i agree with Mao, something is happening with out climate as it always does. Since you brought up he topic of weather lacoste may i remind you of the ice age. We're industrial humans alive back then, uh don't think so my friend. This is a stupid comment anyway but i had to say it because of people like you. I also agree with Mao saying that government is taking the easy way out and it is, the chemical make up of what is causing the depletion of our ozone is a difficult science, i believe, and saying CO2 is the cause is a bad as blasphemy as they would say Not really but have an open mind lacoste and don't be confined to your little world of happiness's with no political lies.

[Collin Li]

Half your points lacoste are unjustified, unrealistic and you clearly have not got an open mind. You are mentioning all the thins that you see on the media; i.e global warming is causing melting of ice caps, tornadoes etc etc. But you cannot seem to present an argument that justifies the governments actions on actually blaming all the global warming to CO2 emissions by advertising blatant advertisement when clearly it doesn't have much research to back up its "theories," not FACTS!. Plus why do you care were i got some of the info from. Is that what you've been trying to for one hour, DECIPHER THE MYSTERY OF HARDS INFORMATION! honestly lacoste your not even worth having an argument with because you clearly are very conservative, have no credible facts and is just repeating what i, you and any one else hears on the news.
And i agree with Mao, something is happening with out climate as it always does. Since you brought up he topic of weather lacoste may i remind you of the ice age. We're industrial humans alive back then, uh don't think so my friend. This is a stupid comment anyway but i had to say it because of people like you. I also agree with Mao saying that government is taking the easy way out and it is, the chemical make up of what is causing the depletion of our ozone is a difficult science, i believe, and saying CO2 is the cause is a bad as blasphemy as they would say Not really but have an open mind lacoste and don't be confined to your little world of happiness's with no political lies.

No, I support the ad hominem accusation. You changed the focus onto lacoste at some stage, and accused him of a lack of open-mindedness and other things bolded above.

It is much easier to pick apart the logical flaws of his argument. Picking apart the arguer himself (or herself) is not recommended here.

[hard]

That said, there may be other good reasons to advocate it (local air quality, acid rain, etc.), but it doesn't mean we should play along with this bullshit just to get it installed. I'm mainly scared of global governance.

I agree, why should we follow what politics is asking us to do when there is nothing there to answer the question why? Asking of world order etc etc is beyond our scope as it is a trivial area but thinking rationally is within any functional humans capability. Saying that co2 is the known cause of global warming, saying that we should start worrying or else we will melt to death, saying that we should worry or else we will drown to death with the conveyor belt stopping, saying that we should install all these bs we have never heard of until a decade ago on our houses cars etc paying three, four times what they are worth is why clearly do not appreciate the governments attempt to have us blind folded.

[Mao]

Can i ask, why Mao do you state that it is people like me who are not helping climate change, and even worse than the government when really from Ab initio i clearly laid out my view that global warming is out of proportion and not as the government, nor media put it out to be. I am not hear to try and help climate change because that is asking the impossible; climate change in ineluctable but the way politics has taken this issue is clearly wrong.

see:

the government is slapping the carbon emission tax, for example. [thats as in depth as my knowledge into that goes ] to be honest, i'm not so much worried about what the government is doing.

as for hard's arguments, the trivialisation of Global warming is a little hard to accept for me. though I cannot do anything about global warming, its effects and its significance should not be overlooked.

apply the same argument to searching for cure of diseases. would you say that because the Govt.'s spendings on awareness campaigns doesn't cure the disease, the disease can therefore be trivialised because there's no cure for it [yet]?

we shouldn't stop searching, and trivialising this issue doesn't help

hence my statement in http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,4276.msg50418.html#msg50418

climate change cannot be ignored, and arguments people like you present does not help what I believe should be the right course of action.

[hard]

fair enough, i may have attempted to attack lacoste hence using ad hominem, but as i said, global warming isn't all it is seen to be.