Houston's Unrestrained Capitalism Made Harvey Worse.

[EatTheRich]

The vast majority of that money comes from taxes, but it's not a matter of where it comes from, but rather who it's going to. There are TENS of BILLIONS being spent on grants and research. Providing livelihoods for thousands of adherents to this theory.

The fear that that money would dry up provides all the incentive these 'science experts' need to keep such a theory alive and all but declare it 'settled science'. (an oxymoron if ever there was one)

That amount of money and political power drive scientific objectivity into the graveyard.

Again, the fact of greenhouse warming is uncontroversial because it can be easily experimentally verified and rejecting it would mean throwing out huge pieces of what we think about chemistry, astronomy, and physics. The climate researchers have a long history of making predictions that are at the same time bold (in that they predict major departures from pre-warming weather-as-usual), detailed, and accurate.

There is a legitimate debate over how sensitive warming is to greenhouse gases and to how both positive and negative feedback loops will affect greenhouse warming. But as computers become more sophisticated, and as greenhouse warming becomes more pronounced and the "signal" begins to overwhelm the "noise," the debate becomes narrower and narrower. Within that narrow range, there is no particular reason to favor one conclusion over another, since climate research funds will be forthcoming either way. It's as necessary in the modern world as funding for influenza research, which will continue whether or not influenza is pinpointed as a great immediate danger.

 

[Corruptbuddha]

Again, the fact of greenhouse warming is uncontroversial because it can be easily experimentally verified and rejecting it would mean throwing out huge pieces of what we think about chemistry, astronomy, and physics. The climate researchers have a long history of making predictions that are at the same time bold (in that they predict major departures from pre-warming weather-as-usual), detailed, and accurate.

There is a legitimate debate over how sensitive warming is to greenhouse gases and to how both positive and negative feedback loops will affect greenhouse warming. But as computers become more sophisticated, and as greenhouse warming becomes more pronounced and the "signal" begins to overwhelm the "noise," the debate becomes narrower and narrower. Within that narrow range, there is no particular reason to favor one conclusion over another, since climate research funds will be forthcoming either way. It's as necessary in the modern world as funding for influenza research, which will continue whether or not influenza is pinpointed as a great immediate danger.

I'm not arguing the science, I'm debating the conclusions and the proposed "cure". In order for me to sign off on imposing carbon taxes and energy austerity, the conclusions have to be much more absolute than "likely".

 

[EatTheRich]

I'm not arguing the science, I'm debating the conclusions and the proposed "cure". In order for me to sign off on imposing carbon taxes and energy austerity, the conclusions have to be much more absolute than "likely".

How much risk are you willing to take with future generations' lives? In case you missed it, the effects of climate change are already (at 1 degree Celsius above the mid-20th century average) transparent to anyone with open eyes.(Maybe it's my latitude, I guess the effects are generally more apparent at high latitudes and in coastal areas, but can you really tell me the weather hasn't been unusual in your area lately?) The tendency of the weather to confirm climate models is reflected in the IPCC assessment that a 2.5-7.8 degree Celsius temperature rise (taking into account climate uncertainty; 3.5-4.7 degrees based on median assumptions) can be expected with "high confidence" (80% likelihood; the other 20% probability is equally distributed between more warming and less warming) by 2100 if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The costs of cutting carbon emissions, except to the oil and coal magnates, will be minimal (0.4-0.9 percent of GDP to meet the Paris targets, which if done are expected to reduce warming by at least a degree, say economists ... meanwhile current climate change and air pollution already cut 1.6% from GDP).

Global warming aside, nuclear power has clear advantages over coal and oil. It is cheaper, less dangerous to workers and consumers per unit power supplied, and causes next to no air pollution. Even without global warming, the only obstacles to nuclear replacing fossil fuels are the greed of fossil fuel interests and the anti-nuclear hysteria that is often funded by them.

 

[EatTheRich]

How much risk are you willing to take with future generations' lives? In case you missed it, the effects of climate change are already (at 1 degree Celsius above the mid-20th century average) transparent to anyone with open eyes.(Maybe it's my latitude, I guess the effects are generally more apparent at high latitudes and in coastal areas, but can you really tell me the weather hasn't been unusual in your area lately?) The tendency of the weather to confirm climate models is reflected in the IPCC assessment that a 2.5-7.8 degree Celsius temperature rise (taking into account climate uncertainty; 3.5-4.7 degrees based on median assumptions) can be expected with "high confidence" (80% likelihood; the other 20% probability is equally distributed between more warming and less warming) by 2100 if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The costs of cutting carbon emissions, except to the oil and coal magnates, will be minimal (0.4-0.9 percent of GDP to meet the Paris targets, which if done are expected to reduce warming by at least a degree, say economists ... meanwhile current climate change and air pollution already cut 1.6% from GDP).

Global warming aside, nuclear power has clear advantages over coal and oil. It is cheaper, less dangerous to workers and consumers per unit power supplied, and causes next to no air pollution. Even without global warming, the only obstacles to nuclear replacing fossil fuels are the greed of fossil fuel interests and the anti-nuclear hysteria that is often funded by them.

To clarify matters, at 4 degrees we're talking (with high certainty) about the 2 most biodiverse ecosystems (the Amazon rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef) being wiped out; most plant and animal species extinct; major cities underwater including Washington, New York, Miami, New Orleans, Alexandria, and Dhaka; hundreds of millions of climate refugees; uninhabitable zones covering the Middle East and North Africa; tsunamis in the Mediterranean; rivers running dry from South America to China; a big drop in agricultural productivity; flash floods in North America and Europe; and a huge increase in infectious disease rates.

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

You're the one who said you wanted a genocide of liberals ... your words. If you want to say that more accurately you are calling for a political democide, be my guest.

CANCER IS NOT YOUR FRIEND AND HAS NO BENEFITS
Liberalism is like a cancer

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

To clarify matters, at 4 degrees we're talking (with high certainty) about the 2 most biodiverse ecosystems (the Amazon rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef) being wiped out; most plant and animal species extinct; major cities underwater including Washington, New York, Miami, New Orleans, Alexandria, and Dhaka; hundreds of millions of climate refugees; uninhabitable zones covering the Middle East and North Africa; tsunamis in the Mediterranean; rivers running dry from South America to China; a big drop in agricultural productivity; flash floods in North America and Europe; and a huge increase in infectious disease rates.

Good, let it go so liberals will no longer have a reason to bitch and lie.
Or better yet

 

[EatTheRich]

Good, let it go so liberals will no longer have a reason to bitch and lie.
Or better yet

How much of it has to happen before you admit that the ideology that caused you to substitute spoon-fed propaganda for the considered consensus of the scientific community was bullshit bought and paid for by big business?

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

How much of it has to happen before you admit that the ideology that caused you to substitute spoon-fed propaganda for the considered consensus of the scientific community was bullshit bought and paid for by big business?

It's never going to happen and what does happen will be normal earth shifts in temperature. I'm not willing to give up my lifestyle for your agenda
So whine away.

 

[JackDallas]

Dr. Robert Bullard was in the process of evacuating his Houston home when he offered these thoughts to Democracy Now! earlier this week:

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/29/dr_robert_bullard_houston_s_unrestrained

"Harvey and the aftermath, the flooding of Houston and the surrounding areas, it’s of biblical proportions.

"This is a nightmare.

"And the images that you see on television and you hear the voices of people who have been just totally destroyed. And this is a situation where I think it’s telling us that we have to change.
We have to change the way we do business and the way that we as humans interact with our environment..."

" Houston is actually—was a catastrophe waiting to happen, given the fact you have unrestrained capitalism, no zoning, laissez-faire regulations when it comes to control of the very industries that have created lots of problems when it comes to greenhouse gases and other industrial pollution.

"The impact that basically has been ignored for many years.

"And so the fact that—it is a disaster, but it is a very predictable disaster."

Capitalism makes massive fortunes for a few parasites by socializing the cost of its negative externalities on the poorest, most vulnerable communities, like those lining "Cancer Alley" in Houston.

It's time the rich paid their fair share of clean-up costs.

I'm okay with rich folks paying their fair share. What do you think is their fair share?

 

[JackDallas]

How much of it has to happen before you admit that the ideology that caused you to substitute spoon-fed propaganda for the considered consensus of the scientific community was bullshit bought and paid for by big business?

The considered consensus of the scientific community is spoon-fed propaganda.

 

[JackDallas]

More evidence that they aren't communists ... Lenin was a good steward of the land in keeping with Marx's insistence.

Good stewards of the land who murdered half the population and enslaved the rest. Can we get a big cheer for Lenin and the Marx Brothers.

 

[georgephillip]

I'm okay with rich folks paying their fair share. What do you think is their fair share?

I think that depends on whether the rich acquire their wealth from earned or unearned income.

http://michael-hudson.com/2014/10/piketty-vs-the-classical-economic-reformers/

" Post-classical theory insists that all income is earned productively, with no source of gain less productive than any other.

"Making money by privatizing public monopolies and cutting services, or simply price gouging to cover higher costs of interest and dividends, management fees, higher executive salaries and stock options is treated as economically productive as building new factories and hiring employees."

The FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) has inverted its traditional role of investing in productive economy. Instead it inflates the value of assets already in place, like Manhattan real estate or the stock and bond markets.

Those who earn their income from such unproductive investments should be taxed at a 99% rate in order to discourage such behavior in the future.

 

[georgephillip]

Good stewards of the land who murdered half the population and enslaved the rest. Can we get a big cheer for Lenin and the Marx Brothers.

Your history is no better.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Your history is no better.

Slavery was terrible. What a shame it is still so widespread in places like Africa. One would think that would be the last place it would still happen.

 

[freyasman]

Your history is no better.

Can you tell me how many civilizations don't have slavery somewhere in their history?
And while you're at it, can you tell me how many of those civilizations went to war with their own people over it?

But Americans are the only folks who are supposed to feel guilty about their history, right?

 

[georgephillip]

Can you tell me how many civilizations don't have slavery somewhere in their history?
And while you're at it, can you tell me how many of those civilizations went to war with their own people over it?

But Americans are the only folks who are supposed to feel guilty about their history, right?

I thought Americans were supposed to be exceptional? I suppose we are in the sense that no other civilization I'm aware of followed two hundred years of chattel slavery with another century of Jim Crow in conservative swamps like Houston.

How many civilizations have the same degree of genocide in their history as the US?

 

[georgephillip]

Slavery was terrible. What a shame it is still so widespread in places like Africa. One would think that would be the last place it would still happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_contemporary_Africa

"The continent of Africa is one of the most problematic regions in terms of contemporary slavery.

"Slavery in Africa has a long history, within Africa since before historical records, but intensifying with the Arab slave trade and again with the trans-Atlantic slave trade; the demand for slaves created an entire series of kingdoms (such as the Ashanti Empire) which existed in a state of perpetual warfare in order to generate the prisoners of war necessary for the lucrative export of slaves.

"These patterns have persisted into the colonial period during the late 19th and early 20th century.

"Although the colonial authorities attempted to suppress slavery from about 1900, this had very limited success, and after decolonization, slavery continues in many parts of Africa even though being technically illegal."

War slaves and debt slaves, some things are slow to change particularly when multi-national corporations are plundering African wealth today?

 

[freyasman]

I thought Americans were supposed to be exceptional? I suppose we are in the sense that no other civilization I'm aware of followed two hundred years of chattel slavery with another century of Jim Crow in conservative swamps like Houston.

How many civilizations have the same degree of genocide in their history as the US?

Not protecting our borders and our people would be exceptionally stupid.

 

[freyasman]

I thought Americans were supposed to be exceptional? I suppose we are in the sense that no other civilization I'm aware of followed two hundred years of chattel slavery with another century of Jim Crow in conservative swamps like Houston.

How many civilizations have the same degree of genocide in their history as the US?

As to genocide, well most all other civilizations have done as bad or far worse.