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I don't think we have enough nukes to do this. On the bright side, if global warming gets too large, we can always cause a nuclear winter to reduce the Earth's temperature! (just kidding) But seriously though, I like how you referenced a study that explains how global warming and a new ice age would be really really bad. Maybe you can see why I think some warming can be good? Not really true. The primary driver of weather events is the global temperature gradient, not the average temperature. Global warming will have greatest effect in the polar regions and therefore reduce the global temperature gradient between polar and equatorial regions. In fact, more climate models have the frequency and severity of tornadoes in tornado-ally reducing with increasing global temperatures. Maybe it would help if you learn some basic physics on heat engines (you know, the physics that operates a steam engine or a refrigerator): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine We have had the capability for decades. We just don't want to spend the money. How is engineering the earth by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, such that the earth becomes more habitable for humans, screwing up?

You are seriously trying to claim that specific weather events are caused by increased CO2 levels? Ridiculous and unscientific! Also, your claim that the magnitudes of these tornadoes and hurricanes has never occurred before is completely false. Actually, the past couple of years has seen a low rate of hurricanes in the Atlantic .Yes, especially with its rare earth elements. Canada has a cold climate. But people have altered the climate slightly by making cities so that were we live is more habitable for humans. What is difficult to understand?

I agree with you on pollution, plastics & mercury. Not quite sure what you mean by reducing carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is a problem in urban environments and is a health problem because of car pollution. But it reacts pretty quickly with O2 to form CO2 so it isn't a global issue (rather a local one). Do you mean we should take measures to reduce car pollution in cities? If so then I would agree with you. For nuclear waste, i'm not quite sure where it is a significant problem. Nuclear energy is a very clean energy and produces a very small amount of waste (which is dealt with well in developed countries). Do you mean that we should recycle waste more? I would also add to the list that we need to restrict use of helium for conservation purposes (putting a tax on helium balloons would be a start). Helium is produced on earth by radioactive decay that produces alpha particles, so it takes a very long time to accumulate helium and we are using up our global helium supply rapidly. The problem is once the helium gets into the atmosphere it floats to the top and escapes the earth's gravitational influence by solar winds. So once it is gone, it is gone. Helium is a very useful element; it is inherent, has low density while in gas form, can be useful for fusion reactors (some people want to mine helium 3 on the moon and bring it back to earth for fusion reactors), and most of all, helium is the only element that acts as a super-fluid (below 2 Kelvin)! I encourage you guys to watch this video on super fluidity! Bose-Einstein condensates are awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKOlfR5OcB4

Huh? So because the Titanic sank and Agent Orange causes cancer, increased CO2 levels 'probably won't be good'? What happened to scientific rigor and fact based reasoning? This sounds like gaia worshiping nonsense: We have sinned against mother nature, therefore she will punish us. No, but it will certainly mean environmental radicals can no longer use the "But we only have one planet!" line. I look forward to that day. Incorrect. The mars one mission plans to be self sufficient and eventually use the natural resources on mars to expand the colony Earth probably is the most habitable planet in the galaxy for humans, because we evolved here, duh. So what? We can always terraform other planets or alter our DNA (and become proto-humans) so that we are better suited to live on other planets.

The troll keeps on trolling... We are invasive species, so what? Invasive species are part of nature/evolution and all organisms alive today are descendants of invasive species. Humans have evolved to become superior to other animals so we are replacing them/causing some of them to go extinct, as is the way of evolution and has been going on for millions of years. This sounds like gaia worshiping nonsense. The earth and life on earth is resilient and has survived many mass extinction events far greater than humans. Furthermore, we will soon have more than 1 planet with humans living on it. Humans are not the 'most fragile' population. This is propaganda from the anti-human environmental radicals. Humans are one of the most resilient species on the planet, which is why we live in so many different conditions and can even travel to space.

I was using the UNFCCC targets of 2-3 degrees because they were based on models and I didn't have time to reference scientific papers at the time. Anyway, here is a compilation of various projects of the increase in global average temperatures over a century if CO2 levels are doubled (from 300 ppm to 600 ppm). http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/charles/uncertainties_in_model_predictio.htm You will see that most models predict a 2-4 degree increase (with one model predicting a 5 degree increase and another model predicting a 1 degree increase). There are references below if you want to look at them, but I would hope that you trust the institute of geophysics. Please note that doubling CO2 levels is a fairly high increase and pretty much represents a non-climate mitigation scenario. Anyway, a doubling of CO2 levels and an increase in global temperatures of 2-4 degrees will still leave the Earth below it's average CO2 levels and temperature levels for the past 500 million years despite gradual increase in solar irradiance due to the sun's life cycle. Okay, so my point still stands that an increase in CO2 levels by a few hundred ppm and an increase in global temperatures by a few degrees will not cause this doomsday scenario and is probably beneficial for humans. Are you satisfied now? No, CO2 levels have been gradually declining for the past 500 million years (actually they have been declining since before the great oxygenation event 2.4 billion years ago). But more recently they have been declining as plants get better and better at performing photosynthesis & adapting to new environments; not to mention as plants have been dying, more and more carbon has been stored in the Earth's crust via fossil fuels. And I have said that the current low period in CO2 dates back to the creating of panama some 22 million years ago, not to 6 million years ago. Anyway, the C4 cycle is an adaptation to low CO2 levels, but at the same time it has caused CO2 levels to drop even further. So you have positive feedback here. Finally, the reason that C4 plants perform particularly well in high temp & high light intensity conditions is because that is where CO2 becomes the biggest limiting factor to photosynthesis (I have already stated this). Plants are not plants? How very Orwellian of you. I said that the effect of CO2 fertilization increases crop yields. But the climate effects will vary depending on region. In places like Canada or Russia (two largest countries on the planet) there will be immense benefit due to an increased growing season. Obviously, we would have to change the foods that we grow at different latitudes. Regions that currently grow wheat may be better suited to crow corn in the future for example. Sigh, guess that link isn't good enough for you then. Your still a denier of the well established science on the CO2 fertilization effect? Then how about this link? http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5183e/w5183e06.htm Note that this study agrees with the scientific consensus on the CO2 fertilization effect. However, I will note that the study does suggest that if one takes into account temperature changes that are caused by the increase in CO2 levels then one finds that an increase in CO2 levels will cause a decrease in global crop yields. However, this is primarily because the study assumes that current crop distribution will remain the same (it even admits this in the conclusion and mentions further study is needed on this). So the result is expected because the crop distribution that we have right now is optimal for current global temperatures, not future global temperatures. If we simply adapt to the changing conditions and grow crops that are better suited to the new climate then I see no reason not to expect that global crop yields will not increase.

While I do not know the future, the idea that people will cause themselves to go extinct via a thermonuclear war is ridiculous. About as likely as me dying in my sleep as a meteorite lands on my house. Such a war would have to have nuclear weapons target every single country on earth (so you would need a global war with everyone country involved) and even then I am skeptical that humans can cause their own extinction via nuclear weapons (rural/remote locations would avoid most damage and humans could always live underground). And no, increasing atmospheric CO2 by a few hundred ppm will not cause some sort of global catastrophe as you alarmists keep on suggesting. As for the comment about evolution, for significant effects it usually takes much longer than a few millenia. However, when you look at humans, we haven't have had much time to evolve to live in cold places like Canada (humans mostly evolved to live in western equatorial africa), yet here we are flourishing. We flourish because we evolved brains that allow us to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Haiti has always been in bad shape for its 200 year history. Are you trying to blame western countries for this? I'm quite skeptical that democracy is the best system of government for a country as poorly developed as Haiti. I do not understand your objection to foreign companies (such as mining companies) coming in and providing Haiti with much needed jobs & investment.

I like how you ignored half my post... This statement is vague. Why do you insist on using it (probably cause you want to use some sort of strawman argument)? I am in favour of some times of religious discrimination and not in favour of others, Same with you and everyone else in this thread. Unless someone wants to argue my point about priests/imams/rabbis. Huh? When do I 'discriminate' based on religious groups. Please provide me with an example. As for not moralizing... I've said many times that affirmative action is racist and therefore morally wrong. Why would you suggest that I should suggest that Canada should exclude immigrants that are muslims? When considering who should immigrant you should consider many factors including education background, age, work experience, language skills etc. Why would one only consider religion? And again, I said that we should modify the points based on country of origin, not on religion. And my issue with islamism is not that the muslims believe in the fairy tales of Mohammed being the final prophet of Allah, met with Gabriel the Angel, had Allah split the moon in two to prove Mohammed's legitimacy and ascended to heaven on a pegasus. My issue is the doctrine of Jihad, the misogyny against women, the calling for death of apostates and gays, the constant theme that non-muslims are inferior to muslims, the violence that it encourages, etc. Furthermore, islamism is only a subset of islam. Peaceful westernized moderate muslims that do not properly understand their own religion are fine. What points? Could you give examples? What do you mean by mushy? Also, when have I discriminated against people based upon their religion? And what do you want me to own? I never claimed to discriminate against people based upon their religion (if that is what you are implying). I said that it is justified to discriminate based upon religion in some circumstances. Why do you continually distort my meaning? Furthermore, you have also admitted that in some cases it is acceptable to discriminate based upon religion (ex. priest/imam/rabbi). How is it mushy to determine if something is justified or not by doing things on a case by case basis rather than making vague generalizations?

I am in favour of some types of religious discrimination and not in favour of other types. And unless you think that churches cannot favour christians over non-christians when hiring a priest, mosques cannot favour muslims over non-muslims when hiring an imam and synagogues cannot favour jews over non-jews when hiring a rabbi then you are in favour of religious discrimination in some cases as well. I'm confused by this statement. What have I been saying about racism and what is 'the principle'? So you are in favour of religious discrimination in some circumstances. Then why are you criticizing me for doing the same thing? Also, with your continued denial that a system that discriminates by race is racist, I might as well be arguing with a flat earther. You clearly do not understand what racist means (which doesn't suprise me as many that do not understand that affirmative action is racist think that being critical of islam makes you racist). I'm do not understand your unclear language. What goose? Also, I gave one example where I think race should be a factor when deciding on who gets a job: acting jobs. Do you also agree with this one case of racial discrimination? I never said 'keep muslims out of Canada'. You really love your strawman arguments, don't you? We had a 14 page thread on this, how do you still not understand my position? I said that islamism is a concern for the west and should be considered when determining immigration policy. I advocated giving immigrants more/less points in their immigration application based on their country of origin. Cause I do not sew my own garments. I buy them from a store.

Never said that. Strawman argument. Again strawman argument. It depends on what kind of religious discrimination. Answer the following question (please do not avoid it). Do you think it is acceptable to not hire a jewish person for the position of an imam because they are jewish? Because I expect you would have no problem with this, which means that you find some forms of religious discrimination acceptable. I never said that either (again strawman). Religion is one of many factors that could influence if someone should or shouldn't come to Canada, and as I said earlier, making decisions based on one's religion is not feasible. Furthermore, you seem to be confusing the concept of 'is justified' with the concept of 'is not morally wrong'.

Michael, you didn't respond to a large portion of my post. So I shall repeat it. By treating people differently based on religion, what are we talking about? You have to be more clear. Are we talking about something similar to what the Nazis did where the law was different for Jewish people? Are we talking about some sort of government funded preferential hiring system that favors people from some religions over others? Are we talking about individuals in society being bigoted towards people from other religions? Are we talking about taking a person's religion into account when hiring someone for a job (such as not hiring a muslim for the job of a priest, not hiring an atheist for the job of an imam or not hiring a creationist for the job of an evolutionary biologist)? The 'hat thing' is there cause people use it. Same with the other symbols on the keyboard. I use the 'hat thing' all the time to express the exponential function. I don't ignore the question. I ask you to clarify the meaning of your question so that I can answer it. No, you are mis-reading what I say. This is why I ask for clarification, so I do not misunderstand what you say. I said that I would have no moral objection to immigration policies that favour people based on their religion. How do you think that means I find all religious discrimination as morally acceptable? It depends on the circumstances. Suppose that a jewish person was not hired for a job because of their religion. This is discrimination, correct? Is it morally justified? It depends on the job. If the job were an accountant, a marketing position or an actor then the discrimination would be immoral. However, if the job were a priest, an imam or an evolutionary biologist then the discrimination is justified. Actually, come to think of it, I can think of one case where racial discrimination can be justified for a job and that would be for acting. For example, you might want to hire someone to play the role of a black person in a movie. Obviously you would discriminate against non-black people when looking for an actor (though you might still hire someone of another race if they agree to wear makeup).

By society, do you mean government? Haven't you used the qwerty keyboard for years? Can't you just press shift+6? By treating people differently based on religion, what are we talking about? You have to be more clear. Are we talking about something similar to what the Nazis did where the law was different for Jewish people? Are we talking about some sort of government funded preferential hiring system that favors people from some religions over others? Are we talking about individuals in society being bigoted towards people from other religions? Are we talking about taking a person's religion into account when hiring someone for a job (such as not hiring a muslim for the job of a priest, not hiring an atheist for the job of an imam or not hiring a creationist for the job of an evolutionary biologist)? It's not a debate tactic. I'm trying to answer your questions, but to answer your questions you have to be very clear in your meaning. I do not want to be accused on misinterpreting your questions. Finally, something more specific and clear that I can answer. I have already given the reasons for my opposition to affirmative action earlier in this thread, so I will answer the second part of your question. With respect to having preferential immigration policies that favor people from some religions over others, I have not advocated that (primarily because it is unfeasible. It is very difficult for the state to define what is a religion or what isn't, and for the state to deal with people who lie about their religion). What I have advocated is to give preferences of immigrants from some countries over others based on a variety of factors (such as human capital quality and culture). Feasibility aside, morally I have no issue with immigration policies that favor people based on their religious beliefs. I would prefer that our country have as few people who believe in ridiculous fairy tales as possible and an increase in some religious beliefs such as Wahhabi Islam will increase the risk of home grown islamic terrorism. Furthermore, no one is born with a religion (unlike race). People are free to choose their religion, so I do not think it is comparable to race.

There is no zero in my name...

There was less mixing of races and peoples in the past yes. Because in the past airplanes didn't exist and it took years to travel a distance that it now takes hours. I don't get what that has to do with separate but equal? Who is advocating separating the races or cultures? Your statements remain unclear. it's a simple mathematical identity. Is it that hard to type? Your username has more characters and takes longer to type. Races are different, religions are different, cultures are different. If they were not different how could we recognize them? What is your point? And your question asking me about treating religions and races differently is unclear. Are we talking about treating the individual humans who belong to these races / religions differently or treating the religions / races themselves differently? I can understand how one can treat religions differently on the theological level, but treating races themselves differently (not the individual) does make sense to me. I cannot understand how one could 'treat' races, except maybe in the context in an academic study about DNA sequencing and the past migrations of humans.

I do not understand how this link is a reply to my question. Culture != Race and you still have yet to clarify your statement. What do you mean by cultures were kept separate by social convention in the past? I think you might be confusing racism with racial supremacism. Affirmative action is racist but it isn't racially supremacist.

Then why do you oppose having hiring practices that assess people based on what they say and do rather and not on their race/gender? Huh? In the past, cultures have always interacted and merged. The frequency of this was lower because it was more difficult for people to move from one place to another. I am confused by what you mean here. Can you give some examples? Treating religions differently makes sense as different religions are different. But do you mean religious discrimination? There is no word in the English language for this that I am aware of, so maybe you should use religious discrimination?

I'm confused what you mean by past? All humans are related to each other within 100,000 years or less (Europeans and East Asians are related within 30,000 years for example). Is this the past you were talking about? Also, are you implying that disagreeing with affirmative action makes you divisive? Shouldn't the policy that separates people into races be called divisive? Yes, it is ageist to provide people with benefits just because of their age. However, that doesn't mean that some ageist policies are unjustified. Aging is a terrible 'disease' that affects the body's ability to replenish itself so people that suffer from aging often need help/assistance. Slightly related, I think that most people would agree that speciesism is justified. We give more rights to humans than other animals (though I might argue that if neanderthals were still around that they should also have equal rights as humans).

Please provide this statistical evidence. Of course ethnocentric hiring habits exist. A good example is affirmative action. Homogeneous cultural bias distribution? Are you suggesting that the proportion of people in management of various cultures will be the same as the population? That will never happen and shouldn't. Cultures that encourage laziness will never result in better success than cultures that encourage work ethic. If this group is a race, you are helping this group because of their race, and it is not in the context of helping prevent discrimination (but rather implement more discrimination) then it is racist. This comment is unclear. The quotation that you have of me indicated 1 way in which skin cancer prevention could be done in a racist way and another in which it was not racist. Which are you referring to? Yes, that is ageism.

Or maybe these studies do not exist, so you cannot back up your claim? Your claim that I'm not interested in learning from others has no justification or merit. Interestingly, I had no problem providing econometric studies in the progressive racism thread, such as studies that discussed the variation in human capital quality of different immigrant groups and how that implied that we should change immigration policy.

You are suggesting that there is no difference between the 2008/2009 bailouts of the auto-industry and affirmative action? really? 1. Everyone is equal means everyone should have equal rights under the law not everyone is the same so should have the same economic outcome regardless of what they do. 2. One's profession is not a race. No one is born as an auto worker. People choose their career paths and their economic outcome is very dependent on their merit and hard work; the same is not true for race/gender. 3. Whether the auto bailout was justified aside, different sectors of the economy affect the economy of Canada in different ways. Therefore, it often makes sense to treat them differently. You wouldn't treat a renewable common good such as the pacific salmon fishery the same way you treat the oil sands or the way you treat the manufacturing sector. The reason you cannot see the difference is because you are racist and are in denial (see progressive racism thread). That is why you have no problem with affirmative action. Also, your claim that helping poor people of all races rather than poor people of visible minorities would cause us to go bankrupt is unjustified and makes no sense. Being poor or not isn't binary, it is a continuum. If you spend $1 million dollars that can only help 1000 poor people, why would you limit yourself to only help people of a certain race? If you chose the most needy regardless of race you would do more good. Maybe the interviews should instead ask questions that are relevant to the job and pick the candidate that is best for the job? Race and gender shouldn't be a factor. Also, out of curiosity, what is the demographic distribution of people in this thread who support affirmative action vs people in this thread who view it as racist?

Strawman argument. I never said that we shouldn't have affirmative action because racism will disappear eventually. We shouldn't have affirmative action because it is ineffective, counter-productive and racist. Chinese is a nationality, not a race. Yeah, that is racism (at least when it applies to race). How much cognitive dissonance must you perform to convince yourself otherwise? It depends how it is done. Skin cancer affects people from all races, but people with less melanin are at higher risk. If the campaign targets everyone but mentions that people with less melanin are at greater risk then it is fine. If the campaign says that it will only help white people who suffer from skin cancer (but not black people who suffer from skin cancer) then it is racist.

..................................................... ...................No, that is racism!

Lol, so much 'progressive racism' in this thread. The infeasibility of a treating people differently based on race/gender aside (how do you deal with mixed race people or intersex/transsexual people?), the immorality of discriminating based on race/gender should be sufficient to justify and end to affirmative action. Please provide me with some of these econometric studies, explain how these econometric studies account for other factors sufficiently to suggest that racial discrimination is a statistically significant factor in a person's income (specifically for Canada), then explain to me how more racial discrimination (via affirmative action) is the best solution to racial discrimination. The problem of racial/gender discrimination will disappear gradually due to cultural changes and due to the darwinian nature of private competition for the best employees. State intervention isn't required and with the case of affirmative action can cause resentment which can increase racial/gender discrimination. If you want the state to do something about discrimination I suggest funding awareness campaigns. Difference of outcome for different racial groups doesn't indicate that racial discrimination is the cause of the difference in outcome. Different education levels, cultural influence (such as work ethic), and population distribution (first nations in rural/remote areas compared to the the rest of the population).

This methodology is flawed. Not only will it only indicate correlation rather than causation, but it will only show short term effects of immigration (as opposed to long term effects). Maybe I can provide some insight on this question of level of immigration. While my biggest issue with immigration is the immigrant source country distribution and the immigrant quality (which in tern affects the optimal level of immigration), I do have a degree in economics so perhaps I can give a basic theoretical framework to finding the optimal level of immigration that maximizes the net present value of Canada's economy. So with immigration, I would say the two largest effects of GDP per capita are: 1) Depletion of the capital stock. The idea is that if you have a sudden increase in the population (via immigration) the physical capital in Canada remains the same while the population increased. So you have a short term effect of lower GDP per capita due to lower physical capital per capita. Note that you can have a similar effect with human capital if the immigrants have a lower human capital per capita than the domestic population, and also note that if you have continuous immigration, this will result in a long run decrease in GDP per capita. You can read more about the neoclassical growth model here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_growth_model 2) Economies of scale. Face it, Canada is a large and empty country. Prices are high and selection of goods/services are low due to lack of competition. Canada has to invest more in infrastructure (like roads, fibre optic cables, etc) per capita than other countries because the people are so spread out. Furthermore, with the low population companies can not take advantage of scaling their operations to have a lower cost per unit of goods/services. While some countries (like Bangladesh) might have diseconomies of scale due to high density of population and low levels of development, for Canada it is pretty clear that we have economies of scale. The effect of increasing population via immigration is that in the long run it will result in a higher GDP per capita. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale So overall, immigration will cause a short term decrease in GDP per capita, and a long term increase in GDP per capita (assuming that the quality of immigrants in terms of human capital is comparable to the domestic population). So how do we reconcile the two? Obviously both short run and long run GDP per capita have value. Well consider this: rather than decrease the short term GDP per capita of Canada and increase the long term GDP per capita of Canada by immigration, we could do it by other means (by investing in education, by investing in infrastructure, by investing in technology, etc.). By looking at the marginal trade-off between short term and long term GDP per capita by using the other means, we can determine an interest rate at which to value GDP per capita over time. And by using this interest rate, we can determine the net present value of Canada's economy as a function of the immigration level. From this we can determine the immigration level that maximizes the net present value of Canada's economy. Actually, perhaps it would be better to look at consumption per capita rather than GDP per capita, but you get the idea. Do you guys think this would be a good way to determine the optimal level of immigration for Canada (or other countries for that matter)?