carepov

In many situations, turning to your faith community for help and support is the most reasonable and rational way to improve your situation.

Not quite. While the analogy is decent, Canada and EU countries are not random 200 lb/90 lb people. Most importantly their standards of living and productivities are similar. I am not saying that they should have equal emissions, I am saying that Canada's emissions should be less than double the EU's.

You have the same mis-understandings about my position as TimG. I never said Canada should become like Europe. I said that the fact that we emit twice as much per capita suggests that we could be doing better. Let's look at some of the things that Europe is doing and perhaps apply some of their best practices.

No, in this case it is not possble that the 90 lb woman is anorexic - because I specifically chose "healthy" countries. You would be correct if I was comparing Canada's emissions to less developed countries - but I am not. Please notice, I did not "start off by telling the 200lb man that he needs to reduce his food consumption simply because he consumes more than the 90lb woman". I specifically said: "let's look at the diets/lives of both people - maybe the man is eating too much or not excersizing enough and can learn a thing or two about healthy living." Do you see the difference? I am not making any claims about what is "ideal" - I am just looking for best practices. Yay, we have at least some consensus!

Here some policies supported by Trudeau: "He supports free trade, foreign direct investment and carbon pricing, all pointing to a curious conclusion: the shaggy-haired, former whitewater guide has an agenda just as capitalist-friendly as the Conservatives. If that notion is odd, this one is heretical: Justin Trudeau might be better for business than Stephen Harper." "Trudeau backs the Keystone pipeline as “an extremely important initiative…in terms of getting our raw resources to market,”" "Trudeau says he’s fine with Canada’s supplymanagement regime" http://www.canadianbusiness.com/economy/justin-trudeau-friend-or-foe/ "Trudeau continued to push for a smaller, and smarter, government. Though the Liberals rallied against "jets and jails" in 2011, Trudeau supports the procurement of fighter jets, believing it's a necessary asset for a strong modern military. He also used the opportunity to establish himself as a staunch federalist, turning the table on Conservatives for associating with soft Quebec nationalists -- albeit three decades ago. Moreover, he attacked the government's Economic Action Plan by saying the economy doesn't need government stimulation. A Prime Minister Trudeau would also fight for minimum government involvement in the economy and support rigorous free trade, according to the interview. These are all things a young Stephen Harper would advocate." http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tom-kott/is-justin-trudeau-a-conservative_b_3150871.html Trudeau is not committing to many policies at this time. IMO this is very wise in Canadian politics - in general the fewer concrete policies that you propose, the greater the chance of electoral success - as demonstrated by Harper and Layton in 2011.

Again, I hate to use "stawman" but I never once implied that any country should match emission to another country. What I am saying is that such a disparity in per capita emissions striongly suggests that there are major oportunities for emissions reductions. To continue your analogy, my logic is like comparing a 200 lb man to a 90 lb woman. I am not insisting that the man consume the same amount of food. I am saying let's look at the diets/lives of both people - maybe the man is eating too much or not excersizing enough and can learn a thing or two about healthy living. Maybe the woman is a smoker and the man can teach/inspire her to quit. Not so fast. Not all CO2 is from the energy sector - and even there it can be reduced. True, I did not see it that way. Yet, that's all the more reason that us "deniers" should not start calling each other offensive names like "alarmists" or "mainstream environmentalists". I am as horrified as anyone at the thought of increased legistlated puritanism. Taxing waste / creating incentives for conservation is not legistlated puritanism. First, my examples were to counter your claim that "very few people waste energy because very few people waste money". Second, there is no moral judgement in "waste".

This is not my biggest counter argument - but it is a very good argument. Many of the shoulders upon modern science stands on were beleivers in God. Here is an intersting list: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html A similar discussion to our was had here: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/did_christianit078281.html "It is not true that "everyone was a Christian then. No one was a Christian in China, no one was a Christian in most of Asia, Africa, and most the Americas. Christendom was a very small part of the world -- perhaps 20 percent of the world's population in the 17th century -- restricted mostly to Europe. Yet modern theoretical science arose only in that Christian sliver of the world. ... The Renaissance was a wholly Catholic project, funded by the Renaissance popes. It was the financial strain of supporting the Renaissance that was the immediate cause of the Vatican's indulgence crisis that sparked the Reformation..." That would be a great study, of course if was controlled for key variables as I mentioned earlier. And don't forget to count the scientific contributions of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science#Living So the scientific revolution occured while the Church controlled EVERYTHING. So now that religion controls ALMOST NOTHING (relative to the 17th century), you are sying that it is religion that is hindering science? This strikes me as odd.

Your question makes no sense to me. You are right, people can effectively cope with loss, meditate, create wonderful art and architechture, be virtuous and act morally without religion. Along the same lines, people effectively can drive a nail without a hammer, we can solve complex equations without a computer, we can communicate without speach. And most importantly people can be stupid/cruel with or without religion. *** Why do you think that so many non-religious people send their kids to private religious schools these days?

carepov, on 27 Dec 2013 - 10:33 PM, said: IMO, all else being equal, a religious person is about as likely to be a critical thinker as a non-religious person. First, this is an opinion and not a claim. It is impossible to prove either way for reasons that you have touched on, and then some. It is probably true that less educated people are on average more religious. Poorer countries tend to be more religious and poorer, less educated US states are more religious. There are many reasons to be religious and when you are surrounded by suffering and hardship there are that many more reasons. Annother reason why someone may be more religious is that you have fewer options on what to do with spare time. IMO it is the fact that people are poorer and less educated that result in them being on average more religious - not the other way around. Anyways, to clarify my opinion, if you take a population from the same geographical area and controlled for age, income, family status and of course education, where one group answers "yes I believe in God" and annother answers "no I do I not beleive in God", then IMO, there would be no significant difference in critical thinking ability between the two groups.

Well Finland and Norway have ~10-12 tonnes per capita per year, Sweeden is 5-6, compared to Canada's 16. How do they do it? There must some best practices that we can adopt. Consider also that we waste 30% of our food - there is a lot of fat to be trimmed. Even if you are right, after 10-20 years, a net 10% reduction is still very significant compared to a 2-5% annual growth in emissions. Also, how will China and India develop, will their emissions grow at 2% or 10%? Governments have no input into energy policy?? Perhaps this is true in Canada - I would argue that we are the exception. But even here, who builds hydro dams? Gas taxes and energy conservation programs... Well I hate to use the term "stawman", but never have I even suggested that I support these kids kids of exrtreme mitigation efforts. Please stop associating my views with these nutjobs. The finite pool of ressources should be wisely spent on a combination of mitigation and adaptation. Are you saying that very few people waste money/time/energy?? If this were tru you would not have us wasting 30% of our food. You would not have people paying 20% credit card interest and Money Mart. You would not have so many people living in such huge homes, nevermind filling them up with overpriced junk then wasting their time cleaning sorting or agonizing why they have so much "stuff". Don't get me wrong I am not at all advocating a return to the "good old days" - I apprecite the advances (leaps) in our standard of living - but just imagine that you are viewing our society from as a person from 50 or 100 years ago. the waste would drive you crazy! Yes you are right, to reduce waste raise the cost of energy. But no, if it is done right, this will not reduce economic activity as the extra cost of energy is offset by the savings of consuming less energy. Often increasing the cost of energy will simply reduce the payback period (or increase the ROI) for investments or energy-efficient designs. Often increasing energy costs will be enough to shift behavious from a wasteful to less wasteful - with no net decrease in standards of living.

By itself, per capita emissions, it not very useful, yes or couse we need to consider different geographies and economies. Still it is useful to know that EU countries emit hald as much as us and still have a high standard of living. This suggests that we have some low hanging fruit. I never suggested 0% by 2050 - this seems ridiculous. So France, already a low-emitter, dropped by 5% absolute and 15 % per capita. What if we all became a little more like France? (except that we still took showers every day). We in NA could easily reduce emissions by 10-30% overall in the next 20 years. Yes, absolute CO2 is what matters to the planet. But when you advocate doing nothing then you are basically advocating an increase in CO2 of how much? About 5% due to population growth and development? This means that in 15 years CO2 emmisions would double under your "plan". Even if our plan was to not cut total emission at all - just stop the growth - then in 15 years they would be half as much as what you are advocating. Yes, adaption is necesary and prudent, but I still can't understand how someone can think that it is not prudent to stop wasting energy.

IMO, this alone (conserving fossil fuels) justifies a carbon tax. Burning fossil fuels results in smog. A carbon tax would indirectly help reduce smog - especially as it would penalize coal. Maybe not, we should continue to research. As I've said, my first reason was reason enough to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

Some actions to reduce CO2 emissions would increase standards of living. For example switch from coal to nuclear.

I pretty much agree right up to here. We can and should take action to reduce CO2 emissions. Why? 1. We should not waste fossil fuels, they are non-renewable and we owe it to future generations to conserve them. 2. Burning fossil fuels, especially coal, causes other air pollution (smog) 3. Climate change models could be wrong the other way - they may be understating the amount of warming and sea level rise. There are many ways to significantly reduce CO2 - without crippling our standard of living: 5. Per person, Australia emitted the most carbon Divided up per person, each country's share of the world's emissions looks a little different. Australia had the highest per capita emissions in 2012 at 18.8 tonnes. In the US, emissions per capita were 16.4 tonnes, and just behind came oil-rich Saudi Arabia with per capita emissions of 16.2 tonnes. The EU and China - both major emitters in absolute terms - had much smaller per capita emissions, at 7.4 and 7.1 tonnes respectively. http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/2012s-carbon-emissions-in-five-graphs/ If high-per-capita-emitting countries followed some of the best practices of the EU - that would be a significant reduction. As China and other countries develop - will they emit like Americans or like Europeans?

Religious people can and do determine truth using scientific methodology. The vast majority of religious people do not even know the "official dogmatic positions" of their faith, let alone beleive in them. The vast majority of people (religious or not) are ignorant about most things like science and the workings of the physical world around them. IMO, all else being equal, a religious person is about as likely to be a critical thinker as a non-religious person.

OK, if you are right... In the entire evolution of mankind, or even the last 8,000 years of civilization, which societies were non-religious? And why have they not dominated their primitive religious foes and taken over the world?

Here are some points that support my claim that religion has been a net benefit to human progress: From: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-science/#EpiSciRel "...theistic belief supports modern science by licensing or endorsing the whole project of empirical investigation..." "The early pioneers and heroes of modern Western science—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, and so on—were all serious Christians" "One of the chief features of the divine image in human beings, then, is the ability to form beliefs and to acquire knowledge. As Thomas Aquinas puts it, “Since human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect, such a nature is most in the image of God in virtue of being most able to imitate God” (ST Ia q. 93 a. 4)." God has therefore created both us and the world, and arranged for the former to know the latter. Thinking of science at the most basic level as the project of acquiring knowledge of ourselves and our world, it is clear, from this perspective, that the doctrine of imago dei underwrites this project. Indeed, the pursuit of science is a clear example of the development and enhancement of the image of God in human beings, both individually and collectively." For these and other reasons, religion was a driving force in the advancement of science and public education through various institutions (monasteries, universities, public schools). Also, religion has also a driving force in the advancement of art and architecture, there is no shortage of evidence spread throughout the world. Many religious practices are akin to meditation - good for the mind - good for human progress. The poster formally known as Prince claimed that religion is immoral. Sometimes drugs and alcohol have a temporary effect on critical thinking and sometimes permanent. Sometimes religion has a permanent negative effect, a temporary effect, none at all, or as I've argued even a positive effect. Religion can be taught to children with "inflicting" them. People that claim that "Religion is bad" (immoral) remind me of those that say "chemicals are bad", or "drugs are bad" or "corporations are bad", or "radiation is bad". Yes, some aspects and applications of religion/chemicals/drugs/corporations/radiation are bad but none of these things are "bad".

Via the Duck Dynasty thead I discovered "The Cult of Dusty" (thanks WWWTT). He some great rants, including this one about GMO's and Monsanto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulq0NW1sTcI

While there are some examples of this being true, overall I disagree that religion slows technological progress. For many people, religious beliefs and practices allow them to recharge, help set their values and priorities and they are better able to focus on their current life. This can help inspire and spark creativity in the arts and sciences and therefore enable faster technological progress. If religion never existed, human society as we know it would not exist either. Throughout the development of humanity and civilization, you cannot extract and separate religion. It is intertwined with philosophy, art, science, technology, compassion and charity and also war, greed and oppression. Again, I do not think that religion necessarily hinders critical thinking and reason. All a religious person needs to do is to separate the physical world from the meta-physical world. This person's view of reality (physical world) is guided by science just like yours is. Their understanding of the meta-physical world is guided by their religion. Easy. Along the same lines, if you think that religion is immoral because it "lies about the reality we live in and makes people think less critically", then in your view, are recreational drugs including alcohol also immoral?

I was refering to submarine sandwiches, brown, white or rye bread is enough choices for our troops. Of course, Canada needs a new fleet of nuclear submarines, WWIII is just around the corner. While we're at it, we should stock up on some nuclear warheads and ICBMs too.

Well as Derek pointed out many things have been done by the CPC government has taken some actions. It is wrong that soldiers had to die before actions were taken, and there are still a lot of changes needed. This is true in the military; it is also true throughout Canada and the rest of the world across many societal problems. How many people have to die before we improve road safety, rail safety, child poverty, health care, the environment? Thank you. I advocate for dismantling/reducing a limited amount of capabilities (perhaps submarines would be a good example). I think that this will support the military because instead of trying to too many things half-assed we can do things better (more effectively and safer). The capabilities that get dismantled in the Canadian Forces should be selected based first on Canada's needs of course but also in consultation with NATO allies. I favour a planned and controlled reduction in operating costs, as per Leslie's recommendations. This will help strengthen our military. The alternative is that one day the government in power will cut the defence budget and the military have no choice but to "slash funding" which I am against.

You said a measurement of military is: "The ability and ease of ones own military to achieve the required objectives of the elected Government." Do you agree that the Korean war was not at all easy? OK thanks, I'll chew on it. I definately not deliberately wasting your time. I am also far less knowledgeable than you about all aspects of the Canadian Forces. I do not consider myself ignorant. What often happens is that you completely misunderstand me. IMO advanced naval warfare capabilities and 5th generation fighters will not be as useful as other investemnts that Canada could make in the Forces or other departments. You seemed to interpret this as me saying, "Canada has never used their airforce or navy". No, and also for the millionth time I am not against replacing some old ships and planes so that we at least maintain the same capabilities that we had when your pictures were taken. You seem to think that we should invest in all sorts of capabilities so that we are "prepared for anything". IMO, that is unrealistic, we should be prepared for the most likely scenarious not Russian and Chinese invasions.

The Korean war did not work out too well did it? In fact, when in your opinion has the Canadian military best met the objectives of the governement? There will be no added bennefit to capabilities that we will not use.

The CPC is reconsidering (doubting) the selection of F35s. They are reconsidering (doubting) the number of ships we will purchase. We were talking about your claim that today's troops are not supported. In my books, when soldiers are safer (fewer are getting killed or hurt), getting paid more, and have more benefits for themselves and their families - these actions mean that troops are better supported. Are injured veterans treated better now of after the Korean war? Again, what specific countries do you think support their troops more than Canada? If these measurements do not matter, then what measurements do you suggest? There is very little chance that overpriced ships would increase the safety of any troops in future missions, when compared to more reasonably priced new ships. Same with planes.

No. I just doubt the selection of replacements, and the number of replacements. Assuming that you survived, would you rather be a Korean war vet or an Afghan vet? How do you measure "support of military". I propose a few measurements: -Troop safety -Pay -Bennefits and family support All are up.