Wind Farms cause global warming

[tomclarke]

It doesn't matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true."
- Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace

Having grown up in a socialist regime in Eastern Europe I can fully appreciate it meaning. Indoctrination from cradle to grave was the way the government pushed its agenda.

Hmmm...

Don't you think taking quotes out of context and using them to label whole groups (greens) as totalitarian might be seen as an attempt to manipulate belief, rather than dicover truth?

Do you know what is the context of these comments? I don't, and would be interested.

Logically, I could see two opposite meanings. One is (as you intend) the speaker is only interested in getting people to do something, regardless of the truth.

The other is that he is interested in the truth, worried by the fact that what happens in practical politics depends not as he would wish on the truth, but on what people believe to be true.

Quite a difference, don't you think? And on such differences, provided by full context, rests a rational appraisal of the issues, rather than a sound-bite-led political reaction.

I'm not myself a fan of the greens, but nor am I of the right-wing factions who can't see the importance of regulation, and the need to give value to common capital in a way that cannot happen by magic in an unregulated free market.

And I'm fully against views of the world which discount future costs and benefits with very high factors, and so leave to short-term but politically expedient solutions.

[Jccarlton]

You can check out some of the quotes from the leaders of the green movement yourself. Some of them view depopulation with a sense of urgency.

http://www.green-agenda.com/

Your comments were about climate scientists. Not leaders of the green movement.

Still, I am interested, what population would you see as comfortable for the earth?

since you raise the point, what population would you be comfortable with and how would you plan to get there? How would you "manage the decline?"

[Jccarlton]

It doesn't matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true."
- Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace

Having grown up in a socialist regime in Eastern Europe I can fully appreciate it meaning. Indoctrination from cradle to grave was the way the government pushed its agenda.

Hmmm...

Don't you think taking quotes out of context and using them to label whole groups (greens) as totalitarian might be seen as an attempt to manipulate belief, rather than dicover truth?

Do you know what is the context of these comments? I don't, and would be interested.

Logically, I could see two opposite meanings. One is (as you intend) the speaker is only interested in getting people to do something, regardless of the truth.

The other is that he is interested in the truth, worried by the fact that what happens in practical politics depends not as he would wish on the truth, but on what people believe to be true.

Quite a difference, don't you think? And on such differences, provided by full context, rests a rational appraisal of the issues, rather than a sound-bite-led political reaction.

I'm not myself a fan of the greens, but nor am I of the right-wing factions who can't see the importance of regulation, and the need to give value to common capital in a way that cannot happen by magic in an unregulated free market.

And I'm fully against views of the world which discount future costs and benefits with very high factors, and so leave to short-term but politically expedient solutions.

the prboblem with your point of view is that the world is not a model railroad:
http://www.therightscoop.com/bill-whitt ... -all-evil/
In the end all regulated societies tend to create the kind of environment where short term expedient decision become the norm and get executed by guys like this:
http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister ... -crucified
If you think the video is bad, consider being in the same room being lectured by one of these people. Think of your regulated society full of little petty bureaucrats interfering with every aspect of your life and getting sexual thrills from "getting people" with their power trips. That's the horror that Orwell was talking about.

[KitemanSA]

You can check out some of the quotes from the leaders of the green movement yourself. Some of them view depopulation with a sense of urgency.

http://www.green-agenda.com/

Your comments were about climate scientists. Not leaders of the green movement.

Still, I am interested, what population would you see as comfortable for the earth?

40 to 50 billion (even more if desired) provided we stop being stupid with the fossil fuels. Polywells (maybe) or MSRs (undoubtedly) can provide sufficient energy to feed, clothe, and house all those people in upper-middle-class (US) style for millenia. Material resources are NOT an issue. Energy is the only issue.

[CKay]

what population would you be comfortable with and how would you plan to get there? How would you "manage the decline?"

When did you stop beating your wife? Type of thing.

[seedload]

In the case of climate scientists the observation is tautologous. Somone who is not very careful about subtleties of cause and effect cannot be a good climate scientist. So I don't apologise for that.

Agree on Svensmark Then there are tools like Lindzen. Spencer is good at measuring temperatures, but otherwise his science is questionable. Same for Jones and Hansen. Climate modeling is not good science right now. Mann is a joke. Paleo Climate in general is not great science. Political advocates like Gore and Mockton are spectacular idiots.

My take is that there is good isolated specific science being done that is not inconsistent with the idea of significant AGW. It's the people that are trying to sum it all up who are not convincing.

Who do you think the good climate scientists are?

Regards

[KitemanSA]

If you subscribe to AGW then in fact windmills DO cause global warming. In certain contries, Germany for one, nuclear power is being eliminated partially due to the "promise" of wind power and solar. Since these sources are so variable, fairly inefficient fossil fuel plants are needed as a back-up. So "wind" has caused (or will soon cause) an increase in CO2 emissions and thus an increase in AGW.

[Roger]

energy prices and unemployment rates are very closely correlated.

Actually since GDP growth is contingent on these 4 factors, Energy, Resources, Population growth & productivity growth, I consider the above quote to be somewaht accurate.

Obviously there is more to the issue, but the price, ease of availability & EROEI of oil play a significant role in economic growth and thusly unemployment.

[choff]

The population will decline or grow by it's own accord and what nature decides, barring interference my Tavistalkers and other maniacs. The problem is the green agenda has been picked up and used not just by Socialists but Banksters.
They see a multi trillion dollar market in pushing green solutions on governments at taxpayers expense, just to slow down the CO2 rate. At the beginning of the whole global warming movement scientists were saying money would be best spent helping people dislocated by climate change, not wasted trying to stop it.
These are the same people that set up the Federal Reserve system and income tax in the states, and subverted the Bank of Canada in my country. They are a vampire squid on the face of humanity.
Some of them are in fact a lot more crazy than greedy, they would like to see a world where the 1% are served by about the 5% that survive the cull, assuming they don't replace the whole of the 99% with cloned servants.

[KitemanSA]

GAIA'S CHILLY & NEEDS MORE BLANKET, BURN COAL!

[CKay]

The population will decline or grow by it's own accord and what nature decides

Yep, let's leave it to 'nature'.

Humanity and and human politics (even socialists!) are natural.

[Betruger]

Can we get off this planet yet?

[tomclarke]

In the case of climate scientists the observation is tautologous. Somone who is not very careful about subtleties of cause and effect cannot be a good climate scientist. So I don't apologise for that.

Agree on Svensmark Then there are tools like Lindzen. Spencer is good at measuring temperatures, but otherwise his science is questionable. Same for Jones and Hansen. Climate modeling is not good science right now. Mann is a joke. Paleo Climate in general is not great science. Political advocates like Gore and Mockton are spectacular idiots.

My take is that there is good isolated specific science being done that is not inconsistent with the idea of significant AGW. It's the people that are trying to sum it all up who are not convincing.

Who do you think the good climate scientists are?

Regards

James Annan - my favourite climate scientist

Gavin Schmidt (but he gets too political on realclimate - still he does good work on ice)

Mann - he again has a political role. but his papers are very good science. Read them. And read the M&M criticism. And read the NRC report and also (for more scientific detail) Walhl & Amman 2007.

I'm sure there are lots of good ones I've not heard of - I do not spend my time reading all the climate science literature.

You need to distinguish the science from the spin. A lot of teh climate scientists do good science, very few of the anti crowd. Both do spin. Alas. It is pretty difficult not to reply to spin with spin, because being scientifically correct is not a sound bite and does not win in the blogosphere - which is a battle. Everyone likes winning.

the IPCC AR4 report is slightly biassed pro-AGW - as in the wrong baysian prior for climate sensitivity (see James Annan - it is now accepted wrong).

But the errors are slight and because it is science based they self-correct over time. The IPCC AR4 report shows however the level of uncertainty that still exists.

That should make people more worried - but it seems for some reason to make the anti-AGW crowd less worried.

[tomclarke]

You can check out some of the quotes from the leaders of the green movement yourself. Some of them view depopulation with a sense of urgency.

http://www.green-agenda.com/

Your comments were about climate scientists. Not leaders of the green movement.

Still, I am interested, what population would you see as comfortable for the earth?

since you raise the point, what population would you be comfortable with and how would you plan to get there? How would you "manage the decline?"

I don't think population can be directly managed in an effective and ethical way. It can be indirectly managed downward simply by providing better health care and female education. This (counterintuitively) reduces birth rate because people believe children will survive.

It can be indirectly managed up by making population groups very poor. that tends to incraese birth rate more than the poverty increases death rate.

What would be comfortable? Maybe 1/2 what we have now. Still, given much more use of technology in agriculture we can probably happily live with current and a bit less room.

[Skipjack]

The problem is that others have an increasing population and they will simply migrate in to fill up your declining population. Unless they are taking on your culture and thus the notion that a declining population is good, they will take you over within a few decades and undo everything.
For these reasons I dont think that population control is the right answer.
IMHO the right answer is expansion.