-1=e^ipi

Third option: Ask the doctors what evidence they used to come up with their conclusions in order to make a more informed opinion.

You want a comparable scenario that can't be viewed as extortion? Fine. I claim that there is a magical demon monkey and this magical demon monkey will eat you in your sleep tonight unless you burn a $100 note as a sacrifice to the monkey god. You can't know that there isn't a magical demon monkey, and maybe there is a monkey god. You don't know for certain that they do not exist. Therefore, the probability of this outcome is non-zero. Therefore, by the precautionary principle, you should burn $100 to the monkey god tonight. The fact that you don't see how absurd the precautionary principle is simply a result of your own cognitive dissonance. The fact that you are pretending that the precautionary principle 'doesn't apply in the extortionary case because the probability is low' is more evidence of this. The precautionary principle doesn't care about the probability of outcomes, which is why it is a dumb principle. Alarmists want to use the precautionary principle to justify their absurd climate mitigation policies without having to sufficiently justify those policies by looking at the evidence and making an informed decision.

Self projection? Reread what I wrote. I specifically was referencing the oil sands. You were the one trying to refute my claim with your lack of understanding of science.

It's a perfectly valid comparison. The precautionary principle is BS because it doesn't take into account the probability of different outcomes. I was merely giving an example to make it easier for others to understand the absurdity of the precautionary principle.

We were talking about the oil sands in particular. Which formed primarily during the cretaceous, not the carboniferous.

Back to this insane BS again? "Oh noes! If we burn too much fossil fuels we will run out of air to breath!" 21% of the atmosphere is Oxygen, less than 400 ppm of the atmosphere is CO2. That means there is more than 525 times as much Oxygen as Carbon in the atmosphere. You could burn all the Fossil Fuels in the world several times over and still not put a significant dent in O2 levels via the substitution effect. Furthermore, as temperatures increase due to higher CO2 levels, more Oxygen is released from the Oceans since oxygen solubility in water decreases with temperature; this effect more than offsets the minor effects of substitution of O2 with CO2. Finally, oxygen levels are primarily balanced by forest fires. If O2 gets too low, forest fires become impossible. If it gets too high, forest fires are rampant and plant life has difficulty growing. Your guardian article is terrible and full of incorrect fact after incorrect fact after incorrect fact. The presentation of the few correct facts is horribly misleading; typical of alarmist idiots.

You deserve it. Do you want me to bring up all your past scientific understanding fails as well? How goes your nobel prize in physics since you have determined that our understanding of heat engines like hurricanes is wrong? Wrong again. Most of it is from the cretaceous period, not the carboniferous. Your only off by 200 million years... Zero.

Eyeball, I claim that I have figured out your name and address from your IP address and using my super awesome hacking skills. Furthermore, I am evil immoral person who will not hesitate to kill you. Put $100 in an envelope and leave it outside your front door at midnight tonight or I will murder you in your sleep. So you have two options: Leave the envelope or not leave the envelope. I could be lying, but I might also be telling the truth; you are uncertain. If you leave the envelope, the worst that will happen is you lose $100. If you do not leave the envelope, you may lose your life. Why not apply the precautionary principle and just give me the $100? I'll be waiting for my $100. As you are a true believer in the precautionary principle, your life should be safe. Ad hominem fallacy.

There is no new carbon being created as you seem to think. All that carbon has existed for the past 4.5 billion years at least. As for recycling, where was the majority of the carbon of the oil sands 150 million years ago? It wasn't in the oil sands because those didn't exist. It was in the atmosphere, when CO2 concentrations were over 2000 ppm. It is still being recycled, the time frame is merely longer.

Wow, these have to be the two stupidest comments I have read all year. And I've read some pretty stupid comments. As for the original question of mindsets. Climate Change Alarmist - facilitated by lack of understanding of science. Climate Change Denialism - also facilitated by a lack of understanding of science. Climate Change Realism - only reasonable position to have.

To be honest, a lot of climate change alarmists and climate change deniers don't understand the distinction. Heck, many members of our senate don't understand the distinction. You continue to surprise me with your terrible understanding of basic science. There is no process on Earth that I know of that is manufacturing carbon. A Human body may convert carbon from 1 form to another (from glucose to CO2 for example), but it isn't manufacturing carbon.

Uhh, yeah humans can. It is called a nuclear reactor.

The point is, if you want to tackle the issue of CO2 emissions, you can't leave out major CO2 emitters. Developing countries shouldn't be excluded just because they are 'developing'. And developed countries shouldn't have an disproportionately high burden due to some guilt about the emissions of their parents decades ago (which is a position many hold). The concepts of developed and developing countries are losing meaning quite rapidly.

Uhh, I was refering to CO2 emissions per capita...

There is no consistent definition. Academics will make up a definition to test certain hypothesis about income inequality. But the middle class doesn't really exist.

According to Justin Trudeau, the middle class is "People who live off their incomes are middle class, and those that live off their assets, their portfolios, their trust funds are not". So apparently, a CEO earning millions of dollars a year is middle class, but an old retired couple with a moderate pension are not. The middle class is simply a political tool used to make the population think that the politician has their best interests in mind, when the politician never made any concrete claims. The vast majority Canadians think they belong to the middle class (lower and upper classes tend to have social stigmas). In reality, the whole 'class system' does not exist. As far as I am concerned, there is only 1 class in Canada: the Canadian class. Anything else is a lie.

China's emissions per capita have now exceeded that of the EU. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29239194 Does this change how 'climate change negotiations' should take place? Or are the alarmists still motivated by some bizarre western guilt complex?

Type 'ISIS world domination' into google or something. Seriously, why continue to deny the beliefs of these radical Islamists? They believe according to the Quran that Islam is destined to take over the world, and they wish to help it get there. As for maps... You mean like this one?

The fact that so many people would rather Canada have more poverty concerns me more.

A simple risk assessment or cost benefit analysis should be done either by Enbridge or the federal government (preferably the federal government; Enbridge isn't exactly the most trustworthy corporation). That would take like 1 government bureaucrat a week to do. Maybe a few more people to assess the report. But that's completely different from delaying the reversal of line 9 for years, and giving veto power to all the municipalities along the way + other special interest groups. The system we have now is horribly inefficient and costly.

Of course there is a different. But not enough to justify giving every municipality veto power over issues of national interest. Especially in this case when the pipeline has been around for decades and has been reversed before.

Strawman. The main point was that it's taken so long. Also, all this red tape required to reverse the direction of the flow of line 9 when the flow has been reversed in the past is ridiculous. If the pipeline is already fine the way it is, it should need to pass all these obstacles just to make the pipeline flow in the direction it was originally intended to flow in.

Nice post Rue. No, it's a collection of many terror cells. And then take over the entire world...

You mean like reverse line 9? Even that is taking years! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/enbridge-s-line-9-pipeline-reversal-plan-not-ok-d-by-montreal-1.2764660 According to the radical environmentalists, reversing the flow of a pipeline to the direction that it was originally meant to flow in the first place is unacceptable. Why not do all 3? Ship oil east, west and south. That too.

Canada should do what it has a comparative advantage in. If Canada lacks refinery capacity, lacks to infrastructure to get it to market or lacks the capital & labour to make new refineries, then having the oil refined in other countries can make sense. Forcing all oil to be refined in Canada can greatly inhibit oil sands development. I'm not saying that oil shouldn't be refined in Canada, just that having oil refined in Canada isn't necessarily the best option. If keystone XL were built, using the refineries in Texas to refine oil makes a lot of sense since these refineries have extra capacity and the infrastructure is already build to get the oil to the North American market and to other markets via the Gulf of Mexico. If you can show that government intervention that encourages domestic building of refineries is in Canada's net benefit (passes the net benefit test) then I'm all for it. Yeah, but there would be less of it. It's morally wrong to implement policies that increase investment and make a country richer? Are you pro-poverty or something? I know, Obama and the environmental radicals have significantly harmed the Canadian economy for decades. It is very sad. Apparently, you do not understand what the word 'necessarily' means.