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10 Questions for Al Gore.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tommy Allison
  • Start date Start date

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For starters, I never claimed or inferred that I'd written this post. Second, I didn't see anyone ascribe credit to me. If they did, I honestly missed it.

As far as my having to 'fess up' for not clearing things up, why should I have to apologize for other people's mistakes?

For crying out loud, I would wager 90 percent of the people on this forum have forwarded something from their e-mail, that they themselves didn't fucking write, and never bothered having explained that THEY THEMSELVES NEVER WROTE IT.

Lastly, typically when I post something I ALWAYS, ALWAYS give credit to other people. I probably got sidetracked with a phone call and forgot to copy and paste the due credit.

Astroboy should put me on ignore the same way I did him.
 
Mr. Global Warming himself, Al Gore, is the star witness today in the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Democrats’ cap-and-tax global warming bill.

Yea Al Gore is a politician. Are any of us really surprised?

My family are all christian right-wingers, and posts like this "10 Questions" post are generally passed around among them to reinforce their opinion that humans have no part in global warming, or that global warming itself is a fraud.

It may be true that humans have no part in global warming, and it may be true that global warming is a fraud, but this "10 Questions" post does nothing to support this argument.

Do the crooked and shady exploits of Billy Meier support the premise that UFOs are all hoaxes?

Yea we're only tiny parasites on the face of the earth. But that does nothing to support the idea that our human activities are not contributing to the rapid destruction of our biosphere.

There's a parasite called malaria. It is contracted via mosquito. It's REALLY tiny compared to a human being. And yet its effects on the entire human organism are staggering.

I honestly don't have an opinion on global warming, but I do believe that our actions regarding this earth are awful and reprehensible.

Every few days I get pages of ads for my local grocery store. As I'm throwing the paper away I think of the thousands of others who are also throwing their papers away and I think, "Trees are being hacked down for THIS, for garbage that no one reads, because a corporation thinks it might attract x% more shoppers to their store."

It's just sad really.
 
AHAH... I see so it was Schuyler who gave me credit. Sorry dude, Didn't write it. Wish I had.


I always link to the site with the article. Easy to do and you don't have to worry about format errors and being accused of being a plagarist (sp?)

PS. I hate Tipper Gore too.
 
Al Gore is a liar and the biggest scam artist in the world. He should be cell mates with Bernie Maddoff as far as I'm concerned.
His whole shtick is that he wants to create a world body that will monitor and tax your green house gas emissions, which is basically a tax-collection agency under the guise of 'saving the planet'. He never wants to debate any serious scientists as is shown in the latest episode with UK's Lord Christopher Monckton in Washington - http://www.climatedepot.com/a/429/R...stify-Alongside-Gore-At-Congressional-Hearing

I can' believe how many people buy into Al Gore's crap... it just underlines the stupidity and brainwashing going on in our schools and universities. No wonder these idiots and thieves get elected!
 
AHAH... I see so it was Schuyler who gave me credit. Sorry dude, Didn't write it. Wish I had.

Sorry, Tommy. I thought maybe you had not, but I didn't want to be accusatory and thought my tongue-in-cheek nudge might make you post who did. I didn't expect astroboy to take me literally, then take off on you. Didn't work out quite how I expected. My fault, not intentional.
 
I'd like to take a contrary position. Surprise. Some of you will not like it. I'm going to ascribe most of this to science fiction, which I 'read out' in my public library when I was a kid, and also to Muchio Kaku, who popularized the Kardashev Scale of civilizations: Type 1 Civilizations are able to harness ALL the power of a single planet. Type 2 civilizations are able to harness ALL the power from a single star. Type 3: all the power of a galaxy. According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale we are a type .72 civilization unable to even harness the power strewn down by the Sun on a square mile of earth. But let's assume for the sake of argument that we're 'on the path' to a Type 1 Civilization and that despite the doom & gloom, we will be able to achieve it.

Now, to continue with this line we have to stop thinking of ourselves as small and insignificant and also stop thinking of ourselves as a disease or a parasite. Instead, for better or worse, we are a product of this planet and also its most sentient offspring. Not that dolphins, Orcas, and elephants are not sentient, but we've been to the Moon and they haven't. We are the means for their survival, but they are not the means to ours. But what is entailed when we talk about harnessing ALL the power of the planet? It means using the earth like a chicken uses the yolk sack of an egg before it hatches. I’m not in favor of ‘pollution’ any more than anyone else is, but I’m also against putting every other species above us in terms of allowing progress and the utilization of resources.

In the USA, at least, right now, environmental regulations are driven by people who have an agenda. I happen to know the guy who figured out you could stop logging in the Pacific Northwest by using the Endangered Species Act to ‘protect’ the spotted owl’s habitat, and acres of forest that otherwise would have been logged—and re-planted. The unfortunate fact that they found spotted owls in Bellingham, WA, far away from their alleged only habitat, was hushed up, otherwise the ruse would be shown for what it was, a complete sham. Thus here is a renewable resource that has been placed off-limits because a group thinks old-growth is ‘better than’ a re-planted forest. (There are plenty of second and third growth forests around here that are every bit as equal in beauty and function to an old growth forest.) We live in an era where you can’t build a dock into the water because it ‘might’ hurt something and you can’t take out pilings because that would disturb the delicate barnacle eco-system. You can’t build a house if someone finds a skunk cabbage on it (Ah ha! Wetlands!) and you can’t disturb a man made culvert under a driveway allowing a man-made drainage ditch to function because suddenly, inexplicably, it has become a salmon habitat. (Note: said drainage ditch is NOT connected to a stream; it’s for rainwater runoff from a road.)

This is the madness we live under. This Earth ought to be able to hold 10 billion people comfortably without undue strain. There’s plenty of food to do that, no matter where on the food chain you decide to stake your claim. If you want more food, the easiest and most effective way to ensure it is to throw some CO2 into the atmosphere to provide fertilizer for plants to grow bigger than they do today. Then you can have ferns as large as houses just like the Jurassic Era. In my view we should be as good stewards of the earth as we can be. It only makes sense because we’re going to use all of it eventually.

I agree with many here that it is necessary for our species to get off this planet eventually and to another solar system, and to keep repeating the process. We’re never going to get out of here until the environmental extremism we are being subjected to does an about face and starts treating our species better than that of a snail darter. We are our own best salvation and the salvation of every other species on this planet we can take along. Yes, this is a very long-term view. That’s the point. It’s not myopic and seeing the earth as it never was with ourselves mired in a stone age from which we can never escape, instead of an earth surrounded by artificial rings with a civilization beginning to tap the resources of an entire star even as it branches out into the galaxy to ensure its survival.

The difference, really, is the difference between optimism and pessimism. If we take the pessimistic point of view, there’s no good reason to even stick around. What’s the point? We’re doomed by being constrained. To save a species we will wind up killing all of them, including ourselves. If we take the optimistic approach, then there is a future to look forward to, one that will sweep us out into the galaxy and the untold wonders that await us.
 
think for a second or two: we eat animals and plants that grow from the earth. everything we consume causes us to grow. but, when we consume it, it is gone. nothing we eat or drink or use to house or clothe us, travel, etc., comes out of thin air. we transform what is already here into what we need to survive and to satisfy our wants.
So, no matter how many people we have on Earth, do we become heavier as the population rises? or does the weight of Earth stay the same, the only addition to its weight coming from space dust? :confused:
[/QUOTE]


ok, maybe, but you're not accounting for Displacement.
The whole Knat on an elephants ass thing was more about the affect we have on the elephant, Less about how much the knats weigh. Sorry I didn't make that clear. The weight aspect only refered to how many knats there were before the elephant noticed them. Meaning, How many of us will it take to make an effect. And Why is it so dammed important to humans to have the power to control every thing at our whim, No matter what the outcome.
It's the human condition. We over do it then we pull it back and say we didn't realize what the true affects would be Even though we had someone shouting it in our face for years. (Our economy for one example). We never start anything we want slowly. If we want it we just grab it consequences be dammed. After all we can always claim that we had someone there to tell us it was fine. How did we know they were wrong. NOT my fault.
What the hell is wrong with wanting to take care of the place you live. Even if it turns out to not matter at all. At least were not living in a fricken crap hole.
 
I have no problems taking care of the planet and cleaning it up.

What I DO have a problem with, is being lied to by some fucking piece of shit who seeks ONLY to enrich themselves, and their cronies at the expense of the people who make the world actually function, perpetually fucking them out of their prosperity and possibly their ability to make ends meet.

When you have people LYING on behalf of special interests that fleece you out of your money, MONEY YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO WORK FOR LIKE A SLAVE, it makes you really resentful when some piece of shit lying scumbag like Al Gore whose carbon footprint can't be calculated by NASA, telling us all we need to do with less.

We need to do with less, so he and his friends can have a little more.
 
If we take the optimistic approach, then there is a future to look forward to, one that will sweep us out into the galaxy and the untold wonders that await us.

Well, I don't know how exactly you are taking a contrary position.

Except perhaps to state that we are somehow being subject to "environmental extremism". That's a little absurd, I think.

I acknowledge that people are using environmentalism to push other agendas. But the degree that the planet is being trashed *dwarfs* the degree that we're being subjected to unwarranted preservation.

I think the reason for this imbalance is quite clear, it is because very few people in power actually care about the biosphere. They generally don't give a damn about the environment, it is a means to an end, a political tool.

Just as Tommy's post has illustrated.

I don't have some "tree-hugging" solution up my sleeve, just laying out the state of things. And acknowledging that it is sad. We are trashing the earth, not because of some idealistic reach toward a type 1 planet, but for the sake of automatism, greed, and laziness.

To save a species we will wind up killing all of them, including ourselves.

Perhaps we will. In the year 2,000,000. But since people who actually care about the biosphere are not in power, we will probably not reach 2,000,000.
 
I have no problems taking care of the planet and cleaning it up.

What I DO have a problem with, is being lied to by some fucking piece of shit who seeks ONLY to enrich themselves, and their cronies at the expense of the people who make the world actually function, perpetually fucking them out of their prosperity and possibly their ability to make ends meet.

Here here!
 
It's been a REALLY long week and a half. Been really agitated about a ton of stuff, and things have NOT been all that great. I might be losing one of my cats due to an illness. She goes to the vet again tomorrow.

It will break my heart if I have to put her down. I've had her for 8 years. I think that's the reason why I've been pretty angry on a lot of threads lately.
 
It's been a REALLY long week and a half. Been really agitated about a ton of stuff, and things have NOT been all that great. I might be losing one of my cats due to an illness. She goes to the vet again tomorrow.

It will break my heart if I have to put her down. I've had her for 8 years. I think that's the reason why I've been pretty angry on a lot of threads lately.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. I can relate, when I was younger my favorite dog was bitten by a copperhead and he died really painfully. I haven't owned a pet since then, just plants.
 
I can' believe how many people buy into Al Gore's crap... it just underlines the stupidity and brainwashing going on in our schools and universities. No wonder these idiots and thieves get elected!

I won't have much to say here because I've already said my piece in the long global warming thread earlier. But,...

Don't confuse Gore's antics with what the majority of science is telling us. Yes the majority. (But these must be the theives or idiots) Either way the science could be based on incomplete data, misinterpreted data, or any number of things. And to comlicate matters, the majority could be wrong (not lying, not cheating, not making shit up, ..just wrong) It has happened before.

The truth of the matter is that ANY side of this has something to gain and therefor defend. So to say this is some elitist push to rule the world then you must at least acknowledge that people, scientists, politicians that are telling you this is complete bunk ALSO have much to gain. There isn't much to be learned from listening to any politician in my view, especially when it comes to global scientific issues.

As far as the Earth is concerned, we are not some gnat on the ass of an elephant. We may not be significant in any peace promoting way, but we are in a physical way. We can and do have an effect on the planet. Its just that we aren't sophisticated enough to accurately determine the causes, drivers, feedbacks, and variables of all of our planetary problems. Science is in essence in its youth, maybe in its infancy.

I've said this before but I have to wonder if the fate of human beings might come down to action or inaction of some planetary problem that we get wrong.
 
Except perhaps to state that we are somehow being subject to "environmental extremism". That's a little absurd, I think.

I gave you two really good examples. The spotted owl, for example, is preventing us from utilizing a vast renewable resource. It has single-handedly decimated the logging industry throwing thousands out of work and creating poverty stricken rural areas that have no hope of recovery. Where you once had vibrant rural communities now you have meth labs. This has also driven up the cost of lumber which has driven up the cost of housing. In fact, a recent study in Seattle showed that environmental and land-use regulations added approximately $200,000 to the cost of a house. Normal people, i.e.: average wage earners, can no longer afford to live in Seattle. A lot who do are dincs who mortgaged themselves to the hilt. Now with the downturn in the housing market they have a negative net worth. (Not that I care much since I think they were full of avarice to begin with.)

In my little community, which is run by sixties left-over do-gooders who would love to see a socialist state, the developers say they have to add $25K to the price of a house just for dealing with the department of 'community development.' Now, some see 'Developers' as bad guys. One is my neighbor. He builds one house at at time. They are very nice. They aren't selling. He's in serious trouble. Now so is the City since they are several million in arrears. Had they not bit he hand that fed them they'd be better off. It's not just the government. We have a group of people suing the City trying to prevent three 100 year old trees of 'historical significance' from being chopped down for a small apartment building. The trees' lifespan is about 100 years. I described the misuse of the 'wetlands statute' last post.

So, yeah, I call that environmental extremism. It's not doing the job. It's built on a tissue of lies. It does nothing but stifle local initiative and raise the cost of everything. 'Environmentalism' as practiced is nothing more than a small group of people with a political agenda determined to tell everyone else what they are allowed to do. It's not so much about protecting the environment as it is about power and control.

In my opinion, we are NOT 'destroying the planet.' I see a lot of evidence otherwise. For example, I've been paddling around the Sound for almost 50 years. There's one clear thing I've noticed: It's a lot cleaner than it used to be. Seriously. You don't see near as much trash. You don't have sewers dumping untreated effluent in the water. Lake Washington, a huge lake nearby, which was once eutrophic (full of algae, unsafe to swim) has been turned into an oligotrophic lake (You can swim without itching You can drink the water safely.) You see the same thing all over. People are a lot more environmentally conscious.

If we were really serious about 'saving the planet' we'd go flat out nuclear as soon as possible--as, of all places, France has done. Of course, if you even suggest nukes, there would be a million signatures and the 'environmentalist' would go ape shit. Basically, in the name of PC environmentalism, we are doing the exact opposite of what we need to do to move this species (and all species) forward.
 
If we were really serious about 'saving the planet' we'd go flat out nuclear as soon as possible--as, of all places, France has done. Of course, if you even suggest nukes, there would be a million signatures and the 'environmentalist' would go ape shit. Basically, in the name of PC environmentalism, we are doing the exact opposite of what we need to do to move this species (and all species) forward.

Ok I understand your point of view a little better. And I pretty much agree.

I think I react strongly to this subject because of the state I live in (denial, er, Houston). After college I moved to alot of different spots in the country, I lived in Brooklyn, Seattle, and New Orleans, and Houston really tops them all in wastefulness.

One thing I liked in Seattle was that every business had a recycling dumpster out back for the cardboard boxes. It was required by law. I used to work at a deli there, and we would break down the boxes and put them in the recycling dumpster right next to the regular dumpster.

I was distraught upon moving to Houston, and seeing that there is nothing like that here. No one really cares.

I wouldn't even expect people to go out of their way to try and protect the environment. Our country's all about convenience, after all. But something like a state-required recycling dumpster out back... I mean hey, you're throwing trash away *already*, how about making a recycling dumpster so we don't act like spoiled children who just expect their nanny to give them another ice cream every time we throw it on the street?

After writing this post, I see that it's really the laziness and sense of entitlement accompanying many people who don't care about the environment that bothers me.

I guess that feeling should be expected from living in the 6th fattest city and 6th most polluted city in the country, as of 2009.
 
Al Gore. Left-wing, Right-Wing. Blah.

The Global Warming issue makes me want to break a baseball bat over my knee like I was Bo Jackson. It's almost ALWAYS a false debate to begin with.

People argue over their political stance (right/left) or the science. How often are the proposed SOLUTIONS talked about? Why not? How about who proposed the concept in the first place?

READ ME:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2341179/1991-CoR-First-Global-Revolution-OCR-Mrkva

"The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself
."


That's from that document, said by Richard N. Haass, current president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

These are the kinds of think-tanks and people who come up with this shit. Who set policy for governments around the world. Global warming in it's solutions is nothing more then a means for carbon taxation via making people feel guilty for living.
 
Personal feeling regarding Al Gore are a distraction when discussing the debate over Climate Change. A debate over Climate Change in itself is pointless because there are greater issues that are interlinked and effect everyone now.

The questions that are relevant in my opinion are:

Do we really want the world to continue be fueled by a limited, pollution causing resource that empowers only a few companies, interests, clans and corrupt governments? It causes civil wars, gross inequities of wealth, and narrowly focused economies.

Do want to continue to be involved with countries that are totalitarian or work against our interests because we need oil? How can we be champions of human rights when many of the countries we are friendly to treat their women and general population so poorly? Why do we support the Saudis when they are the most radically conservative Muslim country in the Middle East and continue to build Masdras (religious schools) worldwide that are clearly anti-Western and fundamentalist Islamic in nature.

Do we want to continue to fight wars to secure its delivery?

The realities that link oil, economic vulnerability, pollution (climate change), war, and terrorism is inescapable. Every time there is war or instability oil prices spike and the stock market tanks. We would not be in Iraq or Afganistan were we not dependent on oil from the Middle East. We wouldn't be on Saudi soil to protect the artificially empowered House of Saud and we wouldn't be attacked by Osama Bin Ladin because we had troops on sacred Muslim land. They don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us cause we're there.

Focusing on renewable or sustainable energy through technology would solve many of the problems we face not just that related to the climate debate. The forefront of renewable energy technology in the US is being driven by Silicon Valley and universities like MIT not big oil. This is also happening in Europe. This type of change in the energy providers creates equal opportunity for whole new industries and economies that will be greater than the change when the world switched from whale oil to petroleum.

With regard to nuclear energy there are two problems that we haven't solved. One is the waste from nuclear plants. That shit is so deadly and stays that way for thousands of years that we have to build elaborate containers and find leak proof storage areas that no one wants in their backyard. Schuyler, would you like to have tens of thousands of nuclear waste containers stored in Seattle? I doubt it. The problem is lots of people want nuclear power but no one wants to put up the schizophrenic aunt. The other problem with nuclear is that it becomes really tough to tell the developing world that is starving for energy not to build them too. We are already going insane because of Iran. We are better off providing an alternative that can't have weapons or catastrophic pollution potential. I'm not comfortable with the idea that Sudan is going to keep its nuclear waste safely stored or away from terrorists.

The big challenges are not the lack of energy but the lack of technology to harness it, the inability to store it, and building the infrastructure to delivery it. There is a tremendous amount of energy that exists naturally that we have not expoited very well. The dams that we have produce an enormous amount of energy but a lot of it goes to waste at night when usage drops. The water doesn't stop flowing and the potential energy generation doesn't decrease but since we can't store it the energy goes to waste. This is true of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, you name it, we can't store it economically. If we had the perfectly efficient way to create hydrogen from sea water then we have to build new/convert gas stations and build the cars to utilize it. All the new solar plants need a way to get the power into a grid that is already inefficient and lacks the reach and capacity to handle it. A whole new interstate power grid needs to be built.

That being said, there are numerous minor breakthroughs that are happening every week that makes me somewhat hopeful. These breakthroughs are happening largely in the Material Sciences field that are yielding greater efficiencies in solar panels, new types of batteries that make all electric vehicles feasible, and processes that can efficiently convert sea water into hydrogen and oxygen. I'm not going to hold my breath on the whole cold fusion thing since we don't even know what the hell is happening on a fundamental level nor pin my hope on a fusion reactor.
 
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