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The Great Copenhagen Cock-up (Politics)
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berniegreen



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nemesis8 wrote:
(it is the hysteria fueled by the politicians/economists insistence that there would be no "bust" to follow the "boom" that created the problem) The suckers took out their mortgages and loans.....the banks and hedge funds sold them on...governments looked away...that is the way that hysteria works....

I don't disagree with your characterisation but, in my eyes, the sin of the politicians, for which they should roast in hell, was complacency - rather than the creation of mass hysteria. Don't you think that the mass hysteria came later when the politicians tried to dig themselves out of the hole that they had just stood by and watched being created by the bankers et al?

We have had mass hysteria, over GFC, swineflu and terrorism, currently it is global warming, your nice Mr Rudd is currently talking this up, for his own ends.......risk management???

Yes, that's right. But why is he doing it? Because, I think, he has been convinced that catastrophe WILL/MIGHT strike - "on his watch" This is the RISK. His Risk Management strategy includes fuelling the hysteria to at least prove to history that he tried to do his part in averting the catastrophe. What would be his position if "the sky had indeed fallen on Chicken Little" and he had stood by and done nothing?
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berniegreen



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Ishmael wrote:
berniegreen wrote:
It can equally well be argued that cutting back on fossil fuel consumption will be an enormous boost to the world economy,
In so far as anything is good for the economy, its participants are already busily engaged in making it so.
Not so, Ishmael. It would be very imprudent for major corporations to risk shareholder's funds in speculative ventures that had little likelihood of success. The conduct of all business is performed inside a social and legal framework. If that were not so, Philip Morris would have switched from tobacco to cocaine long ago.

If carbon were punitively taxed this year, General Motors would have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road next year. At the moment their forecast is, I think, 2013/14 and then only in very small numbers.

Starving the system of energy can have no net positive effect: Starvation may force one to eat saw-dust but it won't make the saw-dust of-a-sudden more nourishing.
Picturesque but not relevant, I think. We are not talking here about "starving the system of energy" but merely of making the system use a different form of energy.
In much the same way that making bricks without straw improved ancient Egyptian architecture.
Same comment applies.
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berniegreen



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Grant wrote:
"What should we do to be saved?"

Nothing, because so far there is no evidence that we are doomed.

Do you remember the final sequence of the movie Thelma and Louise? The ending was so dramatic and powerful because there was "no evidence that they were doomed" until the very last few seconds.

Yes, I agree that the so-called evidence of the GGWC (Great Global Warming Catastrophe) is, to put it politely, "mixed". But it just might be right. Even Komorokid's hero, Bob Carter, constantly points out that Climate Modelling is closer to witchcraft than science. If that is so, then it worries me that there might be as much chance that the doomsayers will be proved right as there is that they will be proved wrong.

As we all know - "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence". And your advice, Grant, seems to me to be very courageous. Not, I hasten to add, "courageous" as used by Sir Humphrey Appleby to mean foolish or ill-considered, just plain old brave.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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berniegreen wrote:
It would be very imprudent for major corporations to risk shareholder's funds in speculative ventures that had little likelihood of success.


Funny.

That's my position on politicians and taxpayer dollars.
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Ishmael


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berniegreen wrote:
If carbon were punitively taxed this year, General Motors would have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road next year.


And it would cost you more to fuel your car via that means that year, than it does conventionally, this year.

This is getting boring again.

If only you had a measure of Chad's genius. He's third class you know.
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nemesis8


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berniegreen wrote:
I don't disagree with your characterisation but, in my eyes, the sin of the politicians, for which they should roast in hell, was complacency - rather than the creation of mass hysteria. Don't you think that the mass hysteria came later when the politicians tried to dig themselves out of the hole that they had just stood by and watched being created by the bankers et al?

We have had mass hysteria, over GFC, swineflu and terrorism, currently it is global warming, your nice Mr Rudd is currently talking this up, for his own ends.......risk management???

Yes, that's right. But why is he doing it? Because, I think, he has been convinced that catastrophe WILL/MIGHT strike - "on his watch" This is the RISK. His Risk Management strategy includes fuelling the hysteria to at least prove to history that he tried to do his part in averting the catastrophe. What would be his position if "the sky had indeed fallen on Chicken Little" and he had stood by and done nothing?


You have just described hysteria.........rather than a rational response to risk.

Your nice Mr Rudd goes to a rural village. Mrs A's baby just died after Mrs C glanced at it. The village think Mrs C is a witch. Mr Rudd doesn't know what's happened. The village is convinced. Mr Rudd burns the witch. The villagers are happy. Mrs B complains that Mrs D has glanced at her baby. Mr Rudd needs to do something as it is on his watch... he can't be complacent.....Hysteria
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Grant



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Bernie, you talk about Mr Rudd as though he is a normal human being. He is not a normal human being, he is a member of that very strange tribe of people called politicians.

Politicians care about power, not about people or, indeed, the environment. They see global warming as a way of increasing their power. The global warming scare means more taxes for you and more jobs and power for them. It's similar in a way to the GFC. That also means more taxes for you and more jobs and power for them.
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berniegreen



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nemesis8 wrote:
You have just described hysteria.........rather than a rational response to risk.

To whip up a bit of hysteria would seem to your typical politician a rational response. As Grant points out politicians are, virtually by definition, abnormal people. Your idea of a rational response (or mine, come to that) is not necessarily the same as a person driven by their lust for power.

Your nice Mr Rudd goes to a rural village.

I do wish you wouldn't call him my nice Mr Rudd. I don't think he is particularly nice at all - although I am sure that his wife and children love him a lot. I would describe him as an extremely intelligent, ultra cautious control freak. But nice, no I don't think so.
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berniegreen



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Grant wrote:
Bernie, you talk about Mr Rudd as though he is a normal human being. He is not a normal human being, he is a member of that very strange tribe of people called politicians.

Politicians care about power, not about people or, indeed, the environment. They see global warming as a way of increasing their power. The global warming scare means more taxes for you and more jobs and power for them. It's similar in a way to the GFC. That also means more taxes for you and more jobs and power for them.
Well yes, in general, I agree with you. But that shouldn't stop us analysing their actions and motivations using our own commonsense.

It is an error to think that ALL politicians want to raise taxes. It can also be a potentially winning strategy for a politician to reduce taxes (or to promise to) c.f. Regan, Thatcher, Howard. But they do want to gain and retain power. And just at this moment "saving the environment" seems to be a "winning strategy".
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berniegreen



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Ishmael wrote:
This is getting boring again.

I agree. Why don't we go back to the beginning and you give us a sensible well argued justification to back up you original assertion that "lowering carbon levels would be the worst possible strategy for the planet", that we can really chew over.

If only you had a measure of Chad's genius. He's third class you know.
Alas we are not all so gifted. But I did wonder to myself if the sea is the only possible source of sand?
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berniegreen



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I find myself vastly amused by the cavortings and posturings at Copenhagen. The threat by the African nations to stage a walk out and boycott the proceedings is the most laughable piece of shooting yourself in the foot that I have seen for a long time.

Go! And find your own salvation, I think to myself.
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nemesis8


In: byrhfunt
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This was always a tad weird, type of thread, the linking of Spinoza (Pascal) wager... with global warming.

Never mind!... I can do weird. I could cope, or at least I thought I could......

It then started getting real weird. It then got scarily real weird.At this point I realised I was sinking deeper into Penington Marsh. I called out.

"Help" Chad.
"Help" Grant.
"Help" Bernie

berniegreen wrote:
Go! And find your own salvation.


I choose to end it.... Nemesis 8 was no more.
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Grant



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The threat by the African nations to stage a walk out and boycott the proceedings is the most laughable piece of shooting yourself in the foot that I have seen for a long time.


I'm sure I saw the Eritrean representative on telly last night demanding a senior place at the table.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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berniegreen wrote:
I agree. Why don't we go back to the beginning and you give us a sensible well argued justification to back up your original assertion that "lowering carbon levels would be the worst possible strategy for the planet", that we can really chew over.


Let's not.
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lyndserae


In: A Spacesuit
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It's not Pascal's Wager. No one was going to get hurt by Pascal's belief or lack thereof- only maybe Pascal. By clamping down on "carbon" we WILL be damning many people to a life of perpetual poverty. The taxes and restrictions will stop any progress that the developing world is making.

GM will never build the cars that its engineers CAN (like the mythological "water car") because if they did that, they would go out of business. They are in the business of making cars and selling them, not solving the world's problems.

An aside, isn't carbon the basis for all life on this planet?
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