Just 5 years left to stop climate change

[Niri Te]

The biggest thing that got us here in the first place Tsyal was the various religions that, one way or another, portrayed women as walking "Brood Mares" unfit for anything but making babies.
One way or the other, this planet needs to shed about two thirds of it's human population, and if we humans don't do it by serious negative population growth for the next three or four generations, I firmly believe that the Planet WILL do it for us with a world wide pandemic, or worldwide drought.
Even the religions promote WISE HUSBANDRY of the planet, and where it says in the book of Revelations, Chapter 16, and verse 4, "And the third Angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became Blood". Could this not be the industrial pollution of the waterways of this planet? And then in Revelation 16 and verse 8 it says, "And the fourth Angel poured out His bowl on the Sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with great fire." Could this not be the total destruction of the protective layers of the atmosphere, causing the full strength of the Sun's ultra-violet radiation to strike the surface of the Earth?"
If we continue to destroy this Planet, we, and all the flora and fauna on it will pay the price.
Niri Te

[Isard]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

You may very well be correct about the agrarian part, and the reason that they can (barely) feed their people, while North Korea, another small, agrarian country can't is probably because of Cuba's sub tropical climate that North Korea does not share.

And because Cuba isn't trying to be a military state. They're just puttering along. If it works for them, it works for them.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

The fact still remains, however, that people are trying to sneak OUT of Cuba, and INTO this "bad capitalist" country. As a matter of fact, I think that is one of a very few, if not the only "end destination" Countries that people try to sneak INTO for a shot at a better life.

Western europe and the United Kingdom are too; but yes, even the poorest in north america and europe have better quality of life than all but the richest in most other countries.

Under the American Capitilist system, my love and I, on only 3.500 dollars a month, own our self build hangerhome on 80 acres, with our own private 4,700 foot runway and the full ownership of two aircraft. Without the technologies that we made use of, or the freedoms of a capitalist system there is no way that we could have achieved the station in life that we did.

Sounds to me like you have the right idea.

Capitalism is not perfect in itself, but it's a lot better than any alternative until humanity reaches a post-scarcity level of development.

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

HNM, you have no idea about who I am or what I believe, do you? What exactly do you think I'm trying to "destroy?"

In terms of progress, nothing, although I do think you are still very attached to symbolism as scapegoats for more complex problems. You're reading a post talking about another view as if it was about yours.

I'm guessing you thought the same thing about people like Ghandi or MLK Jr, who fought against the evils of the systems they lived under?

I wasn't alive during / old enough to see and understand first hand; but no. As far as I understand them, neither of them advocated destruction of what has already happened for destruction's sake, only changes in human behaviour.

I'm fighting corruption and greed. The current system is broken, for people and the planet, it needs to change. I've found something worth fighting for, but apparently you just see me as some sort of saber rattler? Am I hitting anywhere near the mark here? Again, if you seem to think the current system is fine, go see Alternet. There's plenty of independent journalists who would kindly disagree.

I got sick of alternet - some of their articles have good points, but others are just thinly veiled communist screeds. There's a place for some of what they post, but the site tends to become a dumping ground for 'anything non-mainstream goes here'.

Saying something is broken is useless unless you have something better, or a plan to change it, not just going 'this doesn't work lol'. The truth is that the current 'system' (loath as I am to use such a description because there is no ONE, but interaction of millions) does work on many levels, and attempts at imposing engineered ones have failed miserably. Things need to change from the ground up, not to have something imposed top-down, communist style.

Yes, humans have always had an impact on nature, as all species do, but it was never some sort of full-scale technological overhaul of it that some seem to advocate. Again, I have no problem with technology, but humanity should keep its impact on the natural world to a minimum, not try to overhaul the entire biosphere with it, and definitely not attempt to push it on aboriginal people's. There's a line of acceptability of impact, and that would cross it.

...isn't that what I just said in my previous post?
The part of my post talking about destruction of hard-won knowledge and progress was not even aimed at you in the first place. You are more sensible than that, even if your politics tend to the unrealistic.

Oh, and advanced or not, 7 billion people is unsustainable. We gotta bring that number down. Period. Either way, I agree.

Did I ever say anything else there?

I guess a TL;DR is that it is humanity that should make the move and progress, not nature, nature is just fine as it is. Humanity must make the change, and find environmentally friendly technologies that work in better harmony with nature (along with good old fashioned conservation less consumption) as she is. That, IMO, was JC's message, not the other way around. Anthropocentrism is what got us here in the first place, we need to broaden our horizons and think about our effect on nature with our actions.

Isn't that exactly what I said? That the solution is improvement, and not destruction, not upheaval for upheaval's sake. You seem to be convinced that I was talking about your idea when I never was, since yours is actually much closer to what I said.

HNM, I have no idea where you got this anti-tech opinion of me from, but you are way. ****ing. off. Change it, bud. And I don't know why it's bad that I'm fighting the corporate oligarchy?

Again, that wasn't related to your post. You aren't 'fighting a corporate oligarchy', you're pinning problems on strawmen because they're easier to confront than to actually propose anything different. It's extremely easy to go 'change this', but that tends to fall down when asked what you'd do differently.

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by Human No More

I wasn't alive during / old enough to see and understand first hand; but no. As far as I understand them, neither of them advocated destruction of what has already happened for destruction's sake, only changes in human behaviour.

As do modern progressive political movements. Nobody is advocating "destruction" of anything. Sure, there's always violent rabble-rousers in any crowd (in fact, in a lot of cases they are plants to attempt to sully a movements image, remember the right winger who was trying to give out drug paraphernalia to OWS protestors?), but all movements as a whole advocate nonviolent resistance, and actually have a good road map toward change (OWS, for example, advocates publicly funded elections, the recovery of New Deal programs, and the like. See? Small changes to help move the current system toward something completely different in the future, something greener and more democratic).

Maybe it's because people have become so desensitized to political resistance in modern times, that anytime a group takes to the streets or practices nonviolent resistance, it is seen as an attempt at violent destruction.

I got sick of alternet - some of their articles have good points, but others are just thinly veiled communist screeds. There's a place for some of what they post, but the site tends to become a dumping ground for 'anything non-mainstream goes here'.

Progressivism =/= communism. In fact, they are pretty antithetical to each other. To call progressives/liberals/those to the left of center "communists" is a strawman in and of itself.

Saying something is broken is useless unless you have something better, or a plan to change it, not just going 'this doesn't work lol'. The truth is that the current 'system' (loath as I am to use such a description because there is no ONE, but interaction of millions) does work on many levels, and attempts at imposing engineered ones have failed miserably. Things need to change from the ground up, not to have something imposed top-down, communist style.

Today's political movements are trying to bring change from the ground-up. Regardless of what the media says, today's progressive movements are grass roots, from the ground up. If you really want an example of a top-down movement, it's actually the Tea Party, which was chockablock with corporate funding, in fact, most could be tracked back to a set of brothers.

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

(OWS, for example, advocates publicly funded elections, the recovery of New Deal programs, and the like. See? Small changes to help move the current system toward something completely different in the future, something greener and more democratic).

The "New Deal" programs instituted by FDR are ENORMOUSLY expensive, and this Country just so happens to be almost BANKRUPT, and definitely Financially impoverished in large part because of all of the "Social Programs" many of which are being over utilized by a large group of people that should NOT have access to them.
If we add even MORE "give away" programs to the budget, this Country will be BROKE within five years.
You could take ALL the money away from ALL the millionaires, stick it in the Treasury, and in VERY short order, it will be GONE given our current rate of expenditure.
Long before that happens, the "rich" will have left the Country, moved their manufacturing overseas, GUTTING the number of available jobs, and this Country will have all the political, monetary, and defensive clout of Ceylon.
I am sure glad that at almost 62, I won't be around to see what this Country that I pledged my life's Blood to defend winds up becoming.
Niri Te

[Moco Loco]

Generally speaking, there are probably a number of solutions to the declining state of both the economy and environment. The trick will always be getting everyone on board for the same solution.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

Aquaplant,
Communism DIDN'T work in the USSR, it didn't work in Eastern Europe where people were braving Machine Gun Towers, walls, and Minefields to get out, in Cuba or North Korea, where people are starving, and China, while still being a totalitarian State, has gone to a free market economy.
Capatalism may not be perfect, but it is a Hell of a lot better than anything else out there.

I'm not really all that passionate about the whole capitalism vs. communism thing. To me, they are all equally horrible in their own way in a system where everything is measured in money. While countries like China are supposed to be communist, they are only so on a governmental level, while the whole business world is still ruled by money. Of course there's a lot more the state can do about business in general, but China is as capitalistic a country as America is, because it wouldn't be able to function in a system based on money if were really a socialist country and so on.

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

The biggest thing that got us here in the first place Tsyal was the various religions that, one way or another, portrayed women as walking "Brood Mares" unfit for anything but making babies.

Now now, don't you know it's politically incorrect to say anything negative about any religion, no matter how true it might be?

Sarcasm is difficult on the internet

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

The "New Deal" programs instituted by FDR are ENORMOUSLY expensive, and this Country just so happens to be almost BANKRUPT, and definitely Financially impoverished in large part because of all of the "Social Programs" many of which are being over utilized by a large group of people that should NOT have access to them.
If we add even MORE "give away" programs to the budget, this Country will be BROKE within five years.
You could take ALL the money away from ALL the millionaires, stick it in the Treasury, and in VERY short order, it will be GONE given our current rate of expenditure.
Long before that happens, the "rich" will have left the Country, moved their manufacturing overseas, GUTTING the number of available jobs, and this Country will have all the political, monetary, and defensive clout of Ceylon.
I am sure glad that at almost 62, I won't be around to see what this Country that I pledged my life's Blood to defend winds up becoming.
Niri Te

I don't think it's the social programs that are the problem. Europe has had an even more robust social safety net programs than the US, and they were fine. The problems in Europe are more about mismanagement of the Euro, not social programs, just like most of our problems can be traced back to the Fed mismanaging the dollar.

The problem is that since the 1980s, we've been neglecting the demand-side of the supply-demand equation. We've fallen into the idea that throwing all the benefits and tax-cuts at the rich will lead to "job creation." Hell, even Grover Norquist, the GOP tax-cut zealot only views tax increases on rich as actual tax increases. He neglects taxes that effect working people, like the payroll tax, and only concerns himself with taxes that really effect the rich, like capital gains. Not to mention all the talk about uncertainty. All the concerns about "uncertainty" seem to be toward the rich, nobody seems to talk about the uncertainty felt by consumers in the middle/working class. Supply is doing just fine, the stock market is as profitable as ever, it is the demand-side that needs the leg-up to feel enough certainty again to buy and invest, and such is the need for a strong safety net. No amount of tax cuts or austerity can fix the debt crisis, we must restart the supply-demand engine before anything else, and real, sustained revenue can be generated. For example, a dollar of food stamps leads to more than a dollar in return. In reality, the working class are just as much "job creators" as the GOP claims the wealthy to be, most likely even moreso, but they need help.

Yes, the government is wasteful, but the problem is more in defense than in social programs. We are attempting to both maintain R&D as well as be at war. This is unprecedented. Normally during war, R&D stops, and is a peacetime activity. To attempt to do both has lead to unprecedented defense costs, much of which is wasted in failed R&D projects like the F-22 Raptor.

[Niri Te]

Ma Tsyal,
You are the first person that favors some of the beliefs of the occupy movement, and the Democrats that I have heard, that makes any sense.
I agree that the rank and file, middle, and lower middle class American needs to have something, anything, to bolster their confidence that "they" are looking at a brighter future.
I will share with you, what I said that I thought Obama was doing wrong when he bailed out the banks, and what I would have done if I were President for a month.
FIRST OF ALL, I would not have bailed out the banks. They got INTO that situation by their insatiable greed, treating the "sub prime" borrowers like a crop of grain, to be stripped of it's little fruit, (money), and then left to rot in the field untill the next seasons grain,( a new sub prime population generated by the shrinking numberof jobs that forced them to take lesser employments) was planted.
The problem with this was that the banks started acting like "buy here, pay here" used car lots, financing people who had NO HOPE of EVER being able to pay for the houses they were assured that they could one day, own.
The banks were selling the houses to these hapless folks to get the down payments, and five or six months worth of payments, then reposess the house, and resell it to the "next sucker".
This came back to bite them HARD when it went from this steady stream of what they would call useful losers, that would be constantly replenished by the next bunch, to NO ONE being able to pay for their houses, and no one being able to replace them. At that point the entire house of cards came crashing down.
Not only should they have been allowed to pay the price for their unbridled greed, but people should have gone to prison for a long time for what they did.
Instead, they get the money, some of which, the used to throw extravagant parties,
and don't lend out (to responsible borrowers), any of the money that they got.

What I would have done, would be to throw the bums in prison, and let the failing banks DO just that. Not all banks had a problem, and this would be Capitalism at it's finest, only the strong company's survive.
I would then do my OWN little "New Deal Program", NOT by handing Detroit money, but by giving EVERY family a voucher that would give them 15,000 dollars to be used to buy the new Ford, GM, or Chrysler car, their choice their choice of manufacturer.
This would do several things at once. Detroit WOULD get a bunch of money, but from selling vehicles, NOT a handout. The cars that the families were driving would STAY in their posession to sell to those who would either fall through the cracks of the program, or for people who were trying to restore older cars, they would be destroyed, driving the price of used cars right through the ceiling. The Free Market System would funnel the most money to the company that built the best cars, NOT the one with the biggest sob story, auto workers would be called back from layoff to build these cars, and because of their better fuel mileage, would lower this countries demand for gasoline.
The effect of this would dig deeper into the countries smog and oil dependance problems, because a GREAT number of people who did not qualify for the "cash for clunkers" program WOULD get a new car given to them.
I would place this Country on a "War Footing" equal to that during World War Two, the enemy being our climactic, public economic, and oil dependance problems, NOT a foreign
State.
If we could go from JFK's speech, to Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in less than a decade, than WE CAN achieve TOTAL energy independence in a decade as well.
THEN we can stop giving our sworn enemies the money they use to arm themselves against us.
Niri Te

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Yes, the government is wasteful, but the problem is more in defense than in social programs. We are attempting to both maintain R&D as well as be at war. This is unprecedented. Normally during war, R&D stops, and is a peacetime activity. To attempt to do both has lead to unprecedented defense costs, much of which is wasted in failed R&D projects like the F-22 Raptor.

This is me nitpicking and being off topic. Yes, the military and its budget is responsible for many sins, but the F-22 isn't one of them. Without going into technical details, the project isn't failed by any means, and successful aviation programs had to mature just like the F-22 is doing so right now. It's simply curtailed because we don't have the need for such a sophisticated aircraft in our current situation. When you pour lots of R&D costs into relatively few airframes, your per-unit price is bound to go up.

That said, I do support reducing the defense budget, and I feel that the half trillion dollar cut over the next 10 years is a good move if done wisely (i.e. not overcutting).

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

Yes, the government is wasteful, but the problem is more in defense than in social programs. We are attempting to both maintain R&D as well as be at war. This is unprecedented. Normally during war, R&D stops, and is a peacetime activity. To attempt to do both has lead to unprecedented defense costs, much of which is wasted in failed R&D projects like the F-22 Raptor.

Not really - it was 'unprecedented' 700-800 years ago. Most of the revolutionary weapons in the world's history were developed due to need - the longbow, the tank, radar, the battleship, carrier and submarine, the jet engine, ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, just to name a few. To say the F-22 'failed' is wishful thinking - it turned out to be extremely expensive and late, but is still the most capable aircraft in the world. That's not a failure; a project that actually hits its budget target is a rarity, the only difference is that these days they have them rather than being 'whatever you need'.

Bailing out the banks was wrong, and the banks certainly share blame for causing the problem, but the other half of the blame is the people who took out bad mortgages and dodgy credit cards they could never hope to repay. They thought that if they kept shuffling it around they could evade having to pay for things forever, and so should share responsibility for their actions rather than demanding they be taken care of.

[Tsyal Makto]

Actually it is unprecedented (I misspoke, let me reiterate). This is one of the first times in history, that we've attempted to maintain several wars at once, maintain R&D, and maintain a normal economy all at the same time. In most war times the civilian economy resources were re-allocated to the war effort (rationed, factories converted, etc). The only other major superpower to attempt to keep a massive military and maintain a civil economy was the USSR, and it lead to their collapse.

There's a reason it's called guns vs butter. A country can either go full-on one or the other, but not both full-on at the same time (and even then, a military buildup is only sustainable for so long). You can't burn the candle at both ends like that, especially during a global economic recession. It's time to pull back and start rebuilding the domestic economy and gutted social programs

As for the F-22, it's not really that hot anymore, compared to the F-35, that's where the future really was the whole time. The F-22 had major design flaws (in the rain it looses it's stealth capabilities). The F-35 has more to offer at a cheaper price. The F-22 was a nice attempt, but it missed the mark.

But I stand by my statement - If you're looking for the biggest source of waste, fraud, and abuse in the US government, it is the Pentagon and defense contractors, and the government really needs to crack down.

http://gflorencescott.wordpress.com/...tion-continue/

http://www.corbettreport.com/pentago...ing-trillions/

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Actually it is unprecedented (I misspoke, let me reiterate). This is one of the first times in history, that we've attempted to maintain several wars at once, maintain R&D, and maintain a normal economy all at the same time. In most war times the civilian economy resources were re-allocated to the war effort (rationed, factories converted, etc). The only other major superpower to attempt to keep a massive military and maintain a civil economy was the USSR, and it lead to their collapse.

There's a reason it's called guns vs butter. A country can either go full-on one or the other, but not both full-on at the same time (and even then, a military buildup is only sustainable for so long). You can't burn the candle at both ends like that, especially during a global economic recession. It's time to pull back and start rebuilding the domestic economy and gutted social programs

The percentage of our national income being spent on defense isn't close to what the USSR spent during its final years, so such a comparison isn't completely valid. That said, even if we make drastic cuts to the defense sector and other areas, welfare programs costs like Social Security and especially Medicare are increasing faster than we are currently prepared for, especially with the imminent retirement of the baby boomers.

Back to the picture of "5 years left to stop climate change," I just don't buy that. The reality is that emissions will invariably increase in the foreseeable future simply because developing countries are trying to reach the same standards of living as western countries. This will lead to increased energy consumption and emissions. On the other hand, we aren't completely sure if the recent rise in global average temperature is related to our increased emission of greenhouse gasses. We certainly have raised the CO2 concentration higher than it has ever been in the past half million years, including the inter-glacial warm periods, and that is certainly something we must worry about.

Granted, if we continue to increase our emissions at the current rate, then we will have quite some trouble down the road. However, there are plenty of research projects aimed at counteracting or reducing our emissions, and I can only imagine that this technology will become more advanced with time. Whether it will come in time to prevent this climate change is the big question.

Climate change is very complicated, and simply stating that it will happen in the next 5 years is just scaremongering.

On an off topic note (I hope this is the last one on this thread):

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

As for the F-22, it's not really that hot anymore, compared to the F-35, that's where the future really was the whole time. The F-22 had major design flaws (in the rain it looses it's stealth capabilities). The F-35 has more to offer at a cheaper price. The F-22 was a nice attempt, but it missed the mark.

There has been a lot of misinformation in the press about the F-22, and vulnerability to rain is one of them. To avoid derailing this thread further, we can discuss this in PM if you want.

[Nìmwey]

In short - I'd rather behave like there IS a crisis (which I believe it is), and then it turns out it wasn't so bad after all and we're all good (we made the Earth a better place in the process), rather than think "Nah, it [insert random doomsdays-event here] is never gonna happen, so why bother?"
...and the rest you can imagine yourself.

[Empty Glass]

Whoa, EXCELLENT cartoon there. Surely these guys who are against environmental measures still tell their kids to clean up their messes at home, if ya know what I mean.