AMAI

Oh, I don't know, maybe a little something called "drought"? Like there isn't drought in some parts of America. Doesn't the thought occur to anyone else that it might be worthwhile to build a water desalination plant or two? There are solutions to drought that don't involve praying for rain.

And how will nuclear energy help with famine in Africa? Hello, famine still means lack of food, right? What the hell is wrong with them they can't grow their own food, working all that sunshine? Dayum. You need energy to run the equipment. If you could run a solar powered water generator, you could use the Sun's energy to make water in a vat. Growing ops in Africa, taking advantage of all that Sun they get. It's goddamned hot there, I thought you or someone said. A prime producer of Sun-generated energy is not being developed because Africa is still working some primitive f'ed-up system of their own, handed down thru generations of somebodys who lived there before and raised your ancestors. Working out how to work with the resources we actually have on the planet, right now, is first of all a matter of identifying what they are. Laissez-nous faire.

What is NOT going to help any developing nation is to continue exporting fear-mongering and cries to return to primitive methods of life. A slightly warmer planet may well benefit much of the land mass, when you view the planet taken as a whole. A few degrees warmer, or a longer growing season, has a positive impact on Canada and the vast ex-Soviet land mass. Being able to inhabit more of our available interiors of continents would be of huge impact. Africa needs the same things we all need - more nuclear energy. We should be working on that and improving it. But we must recognize that the climate changes take place over centuries. This is why we need Individual Rights, and why "Force" won't get the job done. People must see for themselves and value their own lives such that they care about having children so there are some future f'ing generations. The more force that is applied to make people do what some other people SAY is good for them, the more unhappiness you breed in people right now. I'm going to be selfish on this one. I want to know what is in it for me now. Not just what is in store for the future, but for me, now. What I want is more energy, cheaper energy. I want more value of living for my dollar now. If I look after me properly, there'll be a better world for tomorrow. Making sacrifices won't get the job done either.

Does it matter to you if siblings are allowed to marry each other? Does it matter to you if polygamy is allowed? Polygamy doesn't matter to me. Siblings shouldn't marry. Hell, from what I've seen, they shouldn't even go into business together.

So if not tax them, what do we do about the polluters? Nothing? If you're going to put forth an argument, you need to qualify it, substantiate it. "We need a tax like we need a hole in the head" is not sound debating. Advocating another tax is not proposing a solution, either. What we need is more laissez-faire and less intervention. Real pollution is not the same as the trumped up global warming claims. The solutions they're coming up with here are ridiculous. What difference is making the average temperature in a building 2 or 3 degrees warmer inside in summertime going to do, other than make people uncomfortable? The politicians already acknowledge that their light bulb proposal isn't going to make a significant difference in the level of emissions. If volcanoes put as much pollutant into the air in one week that we do in a year, then what's the point of changing our behavior in order to combat global warming? It's the kind of natural process that is caused primarily by the Sun, both on us directly and on us indirectly via its effect on the oceans. So changing our behavior isn't going to alter the PRIMARY contributor. Therefore, we need to prepare for a climate change in a different way - by building more nuclear energy plants for example, capable of sustaining more people in climate controlled buildings, so they don't have to spend as much time outside and can survive a warming of the planet, or an ice age equally well. We need to continue building and making the planet habitable for ourselves and the future generations those environmentalists are so fond of citing as the reason for it all. We already have enough evidence that this planet has withstood ice ages and droughts in the past. Way back before man had built engines that worked on steam, coal or oil, there were ice ages and droughts. So if that is true, which we know it is, then it means the cause of the climate change is something outside of Earth. Ergo, it is the Sun. No, you don't want to pollute your environment. But the global warming issue is not the same as dumping toxic amounts of chemical into the vat of drinking water. The atmosphere is already full of all kinds of chemicals - they disperse naturally, and find their way into the soil and become trace elements that plants actually use and need to grow and flourish. We do need plants - they eat our waste - our carbon dioxide and make us oxygen. We don't need to cut back on industrialization. We need to speed it up. We should not be making ourselves rely on low levels of energy production. We need more nuclear plants. We need to figure out how to use nuclear waste, as a raw material for energy production. We're into the Electronic Age. We need more energy, more electricity, than ever before. Whether the globe is about to go thru a warm period or a cold one, it's our ability to build and remake the earth's resources into structures that help us thrive that will see us through, not shrinking back from technology and blaming it. We're not making the globe warmer. The Sun is.

Marriage means different things to different people; it is not the province solely of those who believe in one god, 20 gods or no god. What is the big deal if two people of the same sex wish to marry, or two people of opposite sex wish to marry and not have children, or two people do not wish to marry and have 10 kids? Why does it matter to you, fcgv, what someone else does? I do not subscribe to the notion of god, or to any notion of an entity that created the entirety of existence, so your entire first post was just so much blah blah. But somehow those who do subscribe to it have decided that their view is the one that must govern for all. I'd like to know how to get you off my back (as it were.)

There's nothing there. Oh, plenty of links - but where is the solid data? How many hours of gobbledy-goop do you have to read/listen to in order to find out that these fools don't actually have a scientific basis for their ludicrous claims? If you, speaker, have waded through it, provide a transcript of the relevant information.

Okay. So he should have said, "We need another tax like we need another hole in our heads," thereby taking into account the fact that we already come equipped with several functioning holes in our heads. We don't need any more taxes. We ought to get rid of all the ones we already have.

Apparently, we are emitting more CO2 than can be naturally sequestered or absorbed. Indeed, that is why we apparently have a problem of global warming.One problem with a carbon tax is that it does not offer an incentive to capture/sequester CO2 other than when it is emitted. There is no incentive to plant trees that presumably absorb CO2. I think this one area that requires far more research. We don't understand well how forests sequester CO2. Whatever global warming is occurring is a result of the Sun's activities. There is nothing, repeat NOTHING, that a tax, or changing lightbulbs, or driving hybrid cars is going to do to change the natural processes of our solar system. The whole global warming issue is completely ridiculous. It's something way beyond our ability to fix, or change in a meaningful way. Yes, there are some instances of actual pollution, but the hysteria over "greenhouse gases" is without reputable scientific data to support it.

Great post, Rue!!! Could there be another purpose to claiming that it's the behavior that's a sin, rather than the person who is a sinner? I think so. It's as if homosexuality could be equated to being a thief or a murderer, as if it were behavior that one could change if only one would accept the wrongness of it.

Thanks for the welcome, Rue. I'm wary of reporting things to my cat. She might tell the other cats outside and ... you know... BTW, that is an excellent post just now. Looks like we're in agreement! I'm sure it must be twice as hard to discover yourself to be gay if you're born to parents who view sex only as an acceptable activity for the purposes of procreation. How did your family handle learning that you're gay?

Is being reported by Figleaf a sign that one has "arrived?" Oh, I wonder when one of my posts will be reported! *Insert emoticon of blissed excitement* My view on homosexuality is that it is as natural as heterosexuality. It is NOT as prevalent for obvious reasons. I consider it natural because it occurs! Does that sound strange? To me, it is Nature's way of providing population control. With that said, I would not refuse gays/lesbians the right to adopt children. Being a good parent does not really have anything to do with one's sexual orientation. Same-sex marriage need not prove disruptive to our society. It is only those who fear change, and those who fear differences in others, who balk at the idea. Making a commitment to one's partner is something that should be available to everyone. I think I would draw the line at marriages between humans and animals, although that still wouldn't prevent people from leaving their estates to their cats.

Is it? Not for much longer. I think not. It will be forced on us, so let's just acknowledge that this country is going communist and do away with the pretense that it's a "choice." The lightbulb issue is ridiculous. For one thing, they admitted it wouldn't even make much of a dent in the overall annual emissions. The savings are laughable. After spending all day in an office, I do NOT want to sit in the same lighting at home. Let them come out with a product that is energy-efficient, cheaper and provides a cozy homey glow, and I'll buy it. Don't force it on me by law. The "Green" people will never be satisfied, anyway. And what IS the deal with banning dishwashers? Are they going to have a long list of "exemptions?" You know, hospitals, restaurants, corporate cafeterias? is it just going to be the individual homeowner who will end up bearing the brunt of this move to go backwards because the government won't get its rotten head out of trying to run the economy and let business get on with making things better? We have capitalism to thank for a LOT of improvements; I sincerely hope this push to ban comforts of our modern age fails.

I'd like to know whether there's any real proof that the changes being cited are actually the result of human activity on the planet. When did they start measuring "greenhouse gases"? Is there really enough data to support these claims? It sounds like a lot of political grandstanding and pressing of emotional buttons.