4 Years to Save Earth!

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by madanthonywayne, Jan 19, 2009.

  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So you got the Gaia Hypothesis confused with a desire to end the human species?
     
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  3. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. I clearly stated that it was not seeing you distance yourself from the human-hater.

    The fact that you think a bunch of warring species creates a thinking being is just another little loony idea that took me aback.
     
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  5. theoneiuse Theoneiuse Registered Senior Member

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    We are not all enemies; For if, warnings fall on deaf ears past uncertainty you will move into solid matter conclusion. Share you will a common faith, for a belief travels faster than the speed of light.
     
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  7. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    You must be with Spidergoat.
     
  8. MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

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    No meaningful change can happen until it hits people in the pocketbooks.

    I ride the city bus, when the price of gas peaked this summer, I was amazed by the increase in ridership. It made good financial sense for people to ride the bus. On my route..it's a 25 mile ride one way..that's 2 gallons or more each way for an SUV. When gas was at $5 that trip would cost you anywhere from $10-20, depending on your vehicle. A bus pass costs $5 for the whole day. Now that the price of gas is back down to under $2, the $5 bus pass isn't as good of a deal... so they drive their own car for about the same cost or even less..without the hassle. Ridership is back down to the old levels.

    The bus I ride holds about 50 people, and since most ride to work by themselves..that's 50 cars not on the road. The bus is an alternate fuel vehicle, so it probably puts off less emissions than just one of those SUV's. It's a damn shame more people don't use them.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2009
  9. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    I would be very happy to see a $3/gallon tax on gasoline. But every penny has to go to debt reduction, none of it can go to any sort of new spending.

    A lot of behaviors would change immediately, just as you described your experiences last summer.

    Americans could help their pockets a lot more if they would live in smaller homes. My wife and I paid cash for our sturdily-built 900 sq. ft. home and couldn't be happier. We live in the mountains but heat our home for the entire winter for ~$400 in oil using a monitor heater and keeping it cool in the house. We have no A/C for the summer and don't need it. Our monthly electric bill is around $50. Total monthly living expenses for the both of us combined is just over $1,200 including groceries/taxes/insurance/everything.

    We live this way in order to save up for an early retirement, not to save the planet. If more people were frugal the way we are, we wouldn't be in a recession right now and energy costs would be much lower.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Uh, dude, Havelock isn't saying anything remotely approaching human-hating or psychotic. If you read his stuff, you'll find all kinds of praise for humans and their potential to do well and do "good" (his idea of it) on the planet.

    He agrees with you about a lot o things, such as the efficacy and actual motivations of carbon trading.

    His Gaia hypothesis - and in his formulation it is just that: a proffered, technical, theoretical viewpoint that has led to actual discoveries by guiding research - is not a religion, although it looks like it may become one some day.

    Aren't you the guy complaining about hatred and vitriol, and its interference with clear thinking, elsewhere?

    A glance at your quotes shows that you include objections to capitalism as examples of human-hating. Clear thinking that isn't.

    As far as what he's talking about, it's something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2009
  11. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    My slogan in life is very short but chock-full of hypocrisy:

    DEATH TO FANATICS!

    I'm trying to form a loud and obnoxious presence in the center to drown out the wings. I am equally disgusted with organized religion and with enviro-cultists. I think the Naturalistic Fallacy creates just as much destruction as the Superstition Gene. The social force of out-grouping is a repulsive force. Repulsive in that it creates artificial separation, and repulsive in that it causes disgusting levels of fanaticism. In order to prove that we do not belong to the crazy group on the Right or the Left, we can adopt no part of their value system and must accept the opposite to be true (and vice versa).

    The Robbers Cave Experiment in psychology comes to mind as an example of how this process works.
     
  12. Mickmeister Registered Senior Member

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    One day, humanity will die out. That is a fact. The only thing that could possibly save humanity is if the big bounce theory was to be proven.
     
  13. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    No doubt.

    Now, some of us would like to prolong that moment. Others would prefer to hasten it. The former occupy a center that is beset upon by fanatics from both ends. The Left want to remove this cancer from the face of their gaia goddess. The Right wants God to smite the sinners and usher them off to the promised land. There are some of us who think we are a great species, capable of art, music, science, literature and so many other gifts that to want less of us is pure evil.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Great. But then you somehow identify people like Havelock as "enviro-cultists". Your assumption that your current political stance is somehow in the center between two wings is unwarranted - you are attacking the normative center, at least as established in physical reality.

    Where would you put Wendell Berry, or Wes Jackson?
     
  15. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    To my Left.

    I'm all for sustainable agriculture if that is the preference of the farmer and the consumer. "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is one of my favorite books of '07 and I used to live 30 miles from the grassland farm detailed in the third section and I frequently purchased their eggs and vegetables from local markets. But I am not poor. I do not live a rich life, but that's because I do not consume very much. I don't spend money on clothes, I get them from Goodwill. I get $8 haircuts every three months. I live in a 900 sq.ft. house. One of the few things I splurge on is my groceries. I'm fortunate to live in a hippie town that has lots of local markets that promote food which isn't trucked across country. It is for these items that I spend my money, so I can bake a perfect lasagna, or create the best stir-fry. It is my personal preference. I think I make a sound choice to spend heavily on the ingredients that make up my body.

    What I will never do is shame the rest of the world for exercising their freedom to make a different choice. I will not spend my time telling people who dine largely off of industrial farming that they are evil and that they are destroying the world. That sort of extremism I leave to Berry and Jackson, extremely bright and well-meaning people who have mistaken their personal choices for Objective Morality, adopting the same language and behaviors that I see from Christians and Muslims on the Right.

    I would be absolutely shocked if one could not find a quote from both of them comparing mankind to a cancer, and that they both think the Earth is overpopulated. I just can't understand this sentiment. Humans are the jewel of this solar system. We are Shakespeare and Newton and da Vinci. We are Pope and Hume and Aristotle. We are the only lifeform that preserves life because we see intrinsic value in organisms we were designed to hunt and kill. We are the only organism which fights for sexual equality and freedom beyond the rape of reproduction. We have sent things to every planet in the Solar System. We keep getting freeer and richer and more humane. I love us and would love to see an Earth with 10-12 billion humans, the population having reached stasis as more come out of poverty and choose to have less children, all reveling in each other's poetry, films, books, art, and music. Trading and laughing with one another! Because THIS is what is happening. THIS is the world we are creating. Not a doomsday with no topsoil and massive extinctions. HISTORY is our guide, not these jeremiads!


    Edit: Someone who thinks the media is to the Right is not qualified to tell me where the normative center is. I bet you do not encounter many people that seem too far to the Left for you. THAT is your indication of where you lie. I see the same number of crazy people to either side of me which is a wonderful tell for where I stand.
     
  16. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Agreed 100%.
    Agreed again. Ice thinks everyone is a rightwinger. Obama, Clinton, Bush, everyone.

    PS When I first came across the article this thread is based on, I was reminded of this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXpmkHrTwtA
    (It's the queen video for Flash Gordon with the famous quote, "Flash, I love you! But we only have 14 hours to save the earth!!!!")
     
  17. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    That video explains two episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" that have always confused me.
     
  18. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

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    Madan, you are a great man of faith, as every rightwinger should be. Why don't you extend Pascal wager to global warming? Global warming does threaten (this) life to the same extent as not believing in Jesus threatens eternal salvation. BTW, man made global warming is grounded in facts zillions times more than Jesus

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    If mankind can burn all coal and oil stored for billions of years without affecting climate or anything else, if mankind can survive comfortably with 10% CO2 in the air, fabulous. What if it's not the case?
     
  19. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

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    Severe case of anthropocentrism.

    We see intrinsic value in preserving (some) organisms we were designed?? to hunt and kill so we can keep on killing them in the future. Humans are the only scourge without powerful external regulators (for time being) capable of wiping up (most) species just for the heck of it. Humans got to police themselves.

    We are the only species practicing rape for reproduction and non reproduction sake. Sexual equality is a purely human concept, how animals should fight for it? How bull buffalo and cow buffalo are unequal? What is freedom for buffalo?


    BS. Humans learner to utilize fossil energy and machines to do the work slaves did in the past, that's it. That where modern "humanity" comes from. Well fed lion is "humane" too, he's even more "humane" than humans, actually. Since lions don't kill for their corpse accounts to grow.

    I have gut feeling you'll live long enough for your illusions to disappear right in front of your eyes.



    What about 100 billions, 1000 billions? You should love that even more? So much more music and creativity will go on in 10x10 cages.

    Post enlightenment BS. I just need that much of poetry and films (if I need any), most people do need rich biological environment to feed all that poetry and films.

    YOu are not delusional, are you? Mankind just gobbled up 50% of cheap fossils, there is not fusion on horizon = delusion check really soon.
     
  20. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Glad to help. But I'm surprised you never saw Flash Gordon. Great cheesy 80's movie with a good sound track (Queen). It even inspired a porno (Flesh Gordon).
     
  21. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    You don't get to make shit up in a debate.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexuality

    Dolphins, one of the heroes of Leftist wackos with a lust for the primitive and the Mother Goddess, rape. Lots of species rape. You are uninformed.
     
  22. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

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    Excellent proof, Einstein, few species out of zillions appears as though they rape (appearances are deceiving). One of the examples is the most intelligent, "human like" animals - dolphins.

    Wikipedia missed it, but it appears that a rooster rapes just about any hen in a flock he likes and can catch. If there is more than one rooster in a flock, hens are really heavily used, up to the point of featherless backs. Whether it's a rape or not, in human terms, is the question. I doubt it's a rape, it's the way chickens are.

    A male dog may try to fuck a pig (male or female), to a dog it appears as a big bitch and it doesn't bite and growl as a real unreceptive bitch. Is that "interracial" rape? Hell no, a dog really "thinks" that a pig doesn't mind it. A dog may try to fuck lots of things, anything suitable (alive or not) with a hole, for that matter. Is that a rape?

    As for ducks and geese, I know about those way more than you and wikipedia. Yup, duck males have strong affinity towards female geese. A few male ducks are "infatuated" with female geese so much, they completely ignore female ducks and spend all the day chasing female geese. However, sizes are different and I have not seen a successful copulation yet. On the other hand, female ducks really, I mean really like male geese (must be thinking - what a darn big duck will impregnate me), female ducks may demand sex from male geese. Grudgingly male geese agree. Female geese are jealous too. A few may mount another female goose to prevent a male geese from having sex with her. And so on.

    Whether or not above behavior constitutes "rape" as humans understand is a big unanswerable question. Keep in mind that dogs, geese, ducks are domesticated and robbed of their "natural" environment. I doubt wild ducks male behave in the same way towards female geese.

    Generally speaking, animals do NOT rape. A few apparent animal "rape" cases don't involve humiliation, beating, torture, killing, dismemberment and the rest of human perversions.

    In two words, genius, you are sick with anthropocentrism. A good right winger should put Jesus in the center

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    Ask Madan, if you don't trust me.
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Where do you get your bizarre notion that "the media" in the US is to the Left of "center"?

    It isn't by evaluating the media itself, placing it on a pre-set Left/Right scale by the evidence, in a spirit of inquiry, for sure.

    A clue here:
    I doubt that. I predict you would not be shocked at all, at discovering that Wendell Berry, for example, has made no such comparison, that such a comparison would be utterly contrary to his life's work and intellectual foundation: you would slide over the inconvenient circumstance and work it into your perception of Berry as a "Left" thinker, and "Left" thinkers as holding such views.

    This perception of yours is not based on facts, and cannot be contradicted by facts.

    Berry has, btw, spent a good share of his life arguing against the "Naturalistic Fallacy" in various forms. More careful attention to his writings can supply you with better arguments than you have brought to this forum.

    But careful attention to Berry's writings would require suffering "absolute shock", and amending your perceptions of "Left". The difficulty of doing that is how you come by your nonsensical evaluation of US media as "Left". By overlooking the obvious and flagrant nature of what you are seeing on US media every day, and attributing to this media views and stances that are not in fact visible in them, you establish their nature by definition, and categorize the rest of their content a priori. So Wendell Berry's general exclusion from the mass media (and Wes Jackson's, or even say Noam Chomsky's, et al) does not cast doubt on an evaluation of the media as "Left" or Berry as "Left", either one.

    So global warming itself, like gun violence itself, becomes a "left/right" issue - not the approach to dealing with it, but the fact of its recognition.

    And we see how the basis of observation "reality has a liberal bias" is formed.
     

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