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[Duuvian]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Given that at least one major activist climate change organization has been faking its data and refusing to release its models (and that organizations on the other side are just as bad, it's scary the kind of crazy stuff that people get up to) I'm saying we need to stop worrying about vague and uncontrollable goals and start worrying about things like city planning (bicycles, ftw), more distributed food production, less waste and more re-use.  These actions would reduce our consumption of just about all resources, improve our collective health, integrate communities into a more cohesive whole and hopefully provide some of the mental and emotional benefits of being tied into a local community, which can be significant.

So much has changed in the past century that we can't make a determination about which change is causing which effect. That's basic scientific method.
...
Like I've said several times, I think we don't know enough to make any predictions about the earth's climate. I think we don't have reliable data...

Bicycles? Hell no. What you are proposing is a step backward in time, a glorious time where people in the rural areas couldn't travel more than 20 miles a day. Of course people would still have cars, they would just be harder to obtain, right? So who do you think would be driving the 50 year old clunker that's been passed down like a heirloom, the poor rural family that can't reach the jobs anymore, or the city guy who can be employed down the block in the big office building?

[Max White]

As a city dweller myself, I think anybody not on a Bike is foolish. Getting around Sydney (Well at least from Lane Cove to CBD) is a lot faster by pedal then petrol, and I'm able to eat those yummy McDonalds muffins without getting fat.

[lemon10]

Given that at least one major activist climate change organization has been faking its data

Who, when, link please.

(I would comment on other things your saying, but since its 4:00 AM here and i am extremely tired, i would just screw up any arguments i try to say).

[Duuvian]

As a city dweller myself, I think anybody not on a Bike is foolish. Getting around Sydney (Well at least from Lane Cove to CBD) is a lot faster by pedal then petrol, and I'm able to eat those yummy McDonalds muffins without getting fat.

Yeah, that makes sense. I have no opposition to encouraging bike use in the cities. Curtailing automobile production because city life is much different than rural life is more than a little unfair unless you'd appreciate a return to the hillbilly days, as I so disparagingly call them. Would you really like to see a common black market in cars?

[Darvi]

Well then Aussies, I hope you can hold your breath.

[Max White]

Well then Aussies, I hope you can hold your breath.

Yea, make, she'll be right! Been practising in the billabong out back! I can keep my breath for longer then a croc I can! I'm just worried that they will try to include carbon dioxide from firing up the old barby!

[Croquantes]

In the province where I live (BC. located in soviet canuckistan) we've had a carbon tax for a few years now. The sky hasn't fallen, and the government pays people $110 a year to keep their mouth shut. The tax is supposed to be "revenue-neutral", so we get nice bribes every year.

[Jackrabbit]

Bribes are good, can't argue with that.

[Darvi]

Unless somebody else gets em.

[Max White]

Well of course they are bad when somebody else takes them, it means they are corrupt. But I know I'm not corrupt, so it's just a show of good will in exchange for a favour, and that is good!

[ed boy]

Except we DO have enough data to predict with reasonable accuracy what climate will do going forwards.

I'd just like to step in and say that the above is completely false.

All that we currently know can be summarised as such:
-The earth has previously gone through long cycles of warming up and cooling down
-In small, closed systems under scientific conditions, increased quatities of greenhouse gases result in an increase in temperature

We do not know to what degree these two reasons (or other reasons that I have not listed) are responsible for current climate change.

You may have seen the results of scientific models, which give dire forecasts. Quite frankly, these are bollocks. Modern computing power is simply insufficient to properly model the earth's complex systems and reactions to things like increased greenhouse gases. Current estimates put it to be about thirty years before we will be able to accurately predict what will happen on a global scale. What you have being bandied around are models that are run on very poor and limited approximations to the earth.

[LordSlowpoke]

Oh what is this. A country whose biggest producer of carbon dioxide are forest fires is planning to tax it. Good luck with that! Yeah, because everyone's gonna count the output down to a gram so good ol' guvnmint can have a few bucks extra. Moving on now.

Seeing the subject of solar power included, with all the desert stuff, I can safely say the "make it on a desert, move it to populated areas" is flawed outright. Think of Sahara -> Algeria, the distance is too immense. A better way to do it would be, well, finding a desert near the ocean's shore, making that huge power plant people been talking about, and actually using the power to live there - by the means of water desalination, cooling, etc. that may let the place get inhabited rather nicely, and even turn the land into a steppe or whatever if everything goes well.

And on the nuclear stuff, you know what surprised me? Our country is planning to build it's first nuclear plant soon. And Greenpeace activists, being as anti-progress as they are (come on, they blocked progress on building a bridge because a specific kind of grass began to grow on the building materials) claims that nuclear power is worse than fossil. Come on folks.

Edit: Warning - while you were typing 5 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.  FFF-

[Jackrabbit]

Well of course they are bad when somebody else takes them, it means they are corrupt. But I know I'm not corrupt, so it's just a show of good will in exchange for a favour, and that is good!

A Logical fallacy that results in cash. I am all in favor.

Also, I really have trouble deciding if Nuclear Power is all that. When it fails, it fails dramatically but most people can only name two of those failures in the last 60 years, and it's much safer at all other times from what I've heard. Yet the stigma surrounding it makes me apprehensive.

[Max White]

Oh what is this. A country whose biggest producer of carbon dioxide are forest fires is planning to tax it. Good luck with that! Yeah, because everyone's gonna count the output down to a gram so good ol' guvnmint can have a few bucks extra. Moving on now.

Seeing the subject of solar power included, with all the desert stuff, I can safely say the "make it on a desert, move it to populated areas" is flawed outright. Think of Sahara -> Algeria, the distance is too immense. A better way to do it would be, well, finding a desert near the ocean's shore, making that huge power plant people been talking about, and actually using the power to live there - by the means of water desalination, cooling, etc. that may let the place get inhabited rather nicely, and even turn the land into a steppe or whatever if everything goes well.

And on the nuclear stuff, you know what surprised me? Our country is planning to build it's first nuclear plant soon. And Greenpeace activists, being as anti-progress as they are (come on, they blocked progress on building a bridge because a specific kind of grass began to grow on the building materials) claims that nuclear power is worse than fossil. Come on folks.

Edit: Warning - while you were typing 5 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.  FFF-

Well, Australia tends to have some rather large desert like areas. I'm sure most of it isn't real desert, but well...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We have a lot of that. Behold Mundi Mundi planes, outskirts of Broken Hill, a days drive from the Ocean, and Adelaide.

So I guess were set for that 'desert near sea' thing. Also, I think a lot of the greenpeace bunch have good intentions, but path to hell and such. Some of them do not really understand how far nuclear power has come. Or I'm just being easy on them because I can relate to a hippie before I can relate to a oil tycoon.

[Sheb]

Well, even when it does fail, it isn't that bad. Look at Japan now, those power plants took in a 9.0 earthquacke and a 23 feet tsunami. And nothing really bad is happening.

Even in Chernobyl, which is the worst-worst case scenario, most of the death could have been averted easily if only the soviet leadership had thrown away the milk and other produces.