What about all those Israeli doctors helping out in Haiti?

The first link I didn’t bother with because Hansen faced down his managers at NASA (he talked on Letterman of being subordinated to a 24 yo manage) and he is still there, so who won?

The second was great because the comments led to this link, a graphic illustration of the retreat of glaciers using time lapse photography. The denialists may even ignore debate about the causes and just enjoy the awesome photography. More links are provided to those interested.

So Alan, many thanks and keep those links coming!

And such a shame Phillip Duncan allows you to promote your junk in the Herald. But the Herald is definitely swinging onto that bandwagon because, as Wishart has learned, there is money to be had in the denialist industry!

Then we will be sailing on uncharted waters, history teaches a very different lesson. So what exactly do we have over every other failed society? what is it that will stop the western world from following every other society in history? We already have the required arrogance.

“Don’t agree with this either. People are doing what they want to do. If what they want to do is things that you find shallow and self centred – so what?”

No, the behaviour is in fact shallow, there is nothing relative about it!

The reality is that the only resource that constrains us today is energy. With enough energy, we can create water, we can remove pollution, we can make currently uneconomic land (deserts) fertile.

Our current energy comes mostly from high carbon fuels (although we’ve been steadily de-carbonising – gas has less carbon than oil, which has less carbon than coal, which has less carbon than peat or wood). Nuclear and solar, however, offer vastly greater energy potential, with close to zero carbon emission. Imagine massive solar arrays in the desert (land currently not used for anything), and that those solar arrays are both providing energy, and also desalinating water. Imagine we sell that energy, and that we use the water to make the surrounding desert productive. Imagine what that does for countries whose only real current asset is sand – which you’ll agree isn’t a commodity in short supply.

I’m not really pessimistic – but I know that things can periodically turn to shit, anywhere. Nature’s way, the way of the world, the way of the universe. The more the population rises, the bigger the potential fall. I back my survival skills, but more and more people can’t even cook for themselves let alone find/produce their own food.

Most of us keep finding ways to survive better than our ancestors. Until we can’t. That is inevitable eventually. If nothing else gets us we may eat ourselves to death – that is already starting to happen on an increasing scale.

I’m not as pessimistic as you. Mankind has shown enormous resilience. 200 years ago, if you didn’t work you died. Life for most was pretty much a subsistence affair. The resources we could see consisted largely of coal and land, and we were running out of both.

Move on a hundred years, we had new resources – oil, gas etc. Those resources, plus technology, greatly increased the amount of food that could be grown from the land, and the mass migration to the cities started. Earlier, most people lived on a farm, during the 20th century most people moved to cities. The productivity of farmland increased enormously, driven entirely by resources and technology that effectively didn’t exist 100 years earlier.

Move on towards now, and look at our new resources. Nuclear fuels (including some that still aren’t really counted as resources – like thorium), look at our unit production per energy input. Look at the solar potential in the equatorial deserts. Food production continues to increase per unit land, and our rivers and air are far less polluted (in the developed world) than 100 years ago. By some measures half or more of the food produced is wasted, so there is still a lot of room to increase without running out of land. Our population is peaking in the developed world, and all indications are that as soon as the developing world reaches the same point that their population will peak as well. Once all the world populations peak, and even start to decline, then we should start seeing a drop in land usage – or we’ll start seeing more “land expensive” food produced.

Also remember that a lot of agricultural land is used for things other than food – particularly the really inefficient biofuels industry. Once we go nuclear or solar, that will stop (if the govt ever stops subsidising it).

In short, I’m not as pessimistic as you.

Shunda Barunda:

Reality will bite hard over the next 20 years, the Western empire has reached its peak, wealth health and prosperity has only served to make us extremely shallow and self centred.

Don’t agree with this either. People are doing what they want to do. If what they want to do is things that you find shallow and self centred – so what? Focus on yourself, and go forth and do good deeds. As for peak – not convinced at all. Health is definitely still increasing, as is self actualisation.

I think I read that back in 1970.

If we are peaking, it’s because of a general moral decline generated by restraining human endeavour and government growing to think they are the only solution.

The solution governments came up with was “a money solution”, something they know little about, unless it concerns tax (take) and spend (waste). Which is exactly why that particular solution will make things worse not better. It arranges affairs of business (which is unthinking) to chase a profit that has no return other than profit.

Heh, I am sure some Roman said the same thing!
Reality will bite hard over the next 20 years, the Western empire has reached its peak, wealth health and prosperity has only served to make us extremely shallow and self centred.

And that is why I am cautious regarding environmental scares and anti-capitalism. Self-loathing is the neurosis of a successful culture that could cause our downfall.

Heh, I am sure some Roman said the same thing!
Reality will bite hard over the next 20 years, the Western empire has reached its peak, wealth health and prosperity has only served to make us extremely shallow and self centred.

But sometime, sometimes, we will be caught out. Swine flu was overblown (or did that prevent it becoming a major problem?) – but it is almost certain that some time we will get hit badly. Like the Spanish flu perhaps. Or Aids.

Climate and pollution tipping points are less likely than predicted (it’s not uncommon for a scientific possibility to become a major MSM scare), but there is a chance that one will catch us out. Once we find it it may be too late, or it may not make any difference.

We live in the information age – it is far easier to communicate than it ever has been – but the quality probably hasn’t improved, far more voice, far more bullshit.

People are not all awesome, there are many slefish opportunists. Neither is capitalism always awesome. One reason I’m not as bothered as some by ETS is that it is just another means of sloshing unproductive money around, there will be winners (some big ones) and losers but we will carry on spending too much on stuff we don’t need anyway. Recently the fire nearly went out so they just stoked it with some more accelerant.

Most of us keep finding ways to survive better than our ancestors. Until we can’t. That is inevitable eventually. If nothing else gets us we may eat ourselves to death – that is already starting to happen on an increasing scale.

Pigs will fly first.

On second thought, wait, it could happen if the National Party changes its stance and tell its activists to spread the word.

In the real world, civilization, technology, capitalism, and people are awesome.

I don’t think the demise of climate change hysteria is a turning point. The same way of thinking will surface again, and we will have to rely on rationality to call them out before too much damage is done. We must be vigilant for the next DDT, population bomb, ice age etc.

Here is a good link about a few these issues:

http://www.crichton-official.com/video-speeches-smithsonian.html

NZ is nowhere near as clean or green as we try to make out, and we are small fry compared to the industrial monsters. Maybe you have statistics to back up your claim that things are “steadily improving”? I’m dubious.

Carbon tax/ETS was seen as a money “solution” to a money driven problem. It may not be the best of ideas but at least it has shaken people and industries up so that the focus has shifted a bit. But I think we have a long way to go yet to get a sustainable mindset. What was one of the major reactions to the financial crisis (brought about due to overspending)? Stimulate the economy, get people to spend more on crap they don’t need. The financial world is addicted to growth. That can never be sustainable.

peteremcc:

It all comes down to what sources you trust.

You can read all the blogs and sites of climate change sceptics and deniers and dismiss everything is said on the sites of the warmers
Or v.v.

Since humans tend to look for data that supports their views rather than contradicts them, most people will stick to one side and look for information that supports their view.

I try to look at both sides whenever possible, but I have to say that personally the weight of evidence comes down on the warmers side.

Personally I’d rather trust the New Scientists than Poneke.
I find their arguments more compelling, but then again everyone has to decided that themselves.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html

Climate science is a complex matter and not easy to follow, nor is quantum physics or gravitational theory.
None of us can really prove that the moon is held in orbit by earth’s gravity, but we choose to trust a general agreement amongst scientists.

Dude…if you had read the emails you would change your tune about New Scientist!

The temperature record is woefully inadequate in both length and precision to validate the models, and the natural variation is far too great to correlate adequately with greenhouse gas emissions in any attempts to assign cause.

Moreover as Roy Spencer has recently noted, the IPCC assumption that there are no unknown climate “forcings” is essential to generate scary temperature rise forecasts. The existence of any unmodelled forcings negate the sensitivity necessary for those forecasts. The huge unexplained natural variations are strong evidence such unmodelled forcings do indeed exist and are significantly bigger than any conceivable variation in greenhouse gases.

Let’s hope he goes to the State Pen.