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Rush Limbaugh: Hurricanes are a liberal conspiracy for promoting climate change

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  • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
    It obviously says I am an astute and informed observer. But that isn't "more" than what I observed about US conservatives.
    It says you are a ridiculous and unabashed partisan hack.
    That's what
    - She

    Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
    - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

    I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
    - Stephen R. Donaldson

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
      It says you are a ridiculous and unabashed partisan hack.
      You know we all have blind spots when it comes to our personal flaws, but it is hard to understand how a man can be so deluded about his own character and abilities...
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Dimbulb View Post
        It obviously says I am an astute and informed observer.


        Come on, man, just admit this is a parody account meant to make liberals and atheists look stupid! Posts like this are practically a dead give away.
        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
        Than a fool in the eyes of God


        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          3. US Conservatives have fostered a climate of anti-intellectualism for decades. They have told themselves that the nasty scientists are lying about the age of the earth and evolution, that universities and colleges are liberal propaganda institutes, that the media is a bastion of liberalism, and Wikipedia is unreliable because anyone can edit it.
          Except for perhaps the bolded, the rest are all actually legitimate points raised by conservatives, even if their extent is sometimes exaggerated.

          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          Most of the causes like burning fossil fuels should be eliminated sometime in the next 50 years or so. Cars are going all electric - probably within the next 25 years, alternative power generating schemes are coming into the mainstream (such as solar power), batteries and solar cells are getting more efficient.

          seems like the problem is solving itself. so why the panic?
          While I agree that simple free market economics will essentially solve the problem itself, the question is whether, at the speed at which it is currently being solved, it will get solved in time.

          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
          Oh great, a Gishops Gallop. I'll go through the list, see if there's anything here.
          So could Gishop.
          Who or what is "Gishops"? I've searched online and can legitimately find no information on either it or "Gishops Gallop." I even tried using the Theologyweb search option, thinking maybe it was some piece of slang just used on this site, but your post is the only usage of it, at least according to the search, on the entire site.
          Last edited by Terraceth; 09-13-2017, 06:09 PM.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Terraceth View Post
            Except for perhaps the bolded, the rest are all actually legitimate points raised by conservatives, even if their extent is sometimes exaggerated.

            While I agree that simple free market economics will essentially solve the problem itself, the question is whether, at the speed at which it is currently being solved, it will get solved in time.

            Who or what is "Gishops"? I've searched online and can legitimately find no information on either it or "Gishops Gallop." I even tried using the Theologyweb search option, thinking maybe it was some piece of slang just used on this site, but your post is the only usage of it, at least according to the search, on the entire site.
            Source: YOUR DICTIONARY


            gish-gallop

            • A rhetorical technique in which a dishonest speaker lists a string of falsehoods or misleading items so that their opponent will be unable to counter each one and still be able to make their own counterpoints



            Source

            © Copyright Original Source



            Wikitionary has the same definition

            So it is a disreputable debating tactic of unloading a massive amount of individually-weak, dubious arguments in a short span so that an opponent can not possibly address let alone counter all of it in the allotted time and then claiming that the opponent was unable to refute xyz.

            It is named after the late Duane Gish, vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), who regularly engaged in debates and had a noted propensity for employing the tactic.

            I'm always still in trouble again

            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

            Comment


            • Oh, it's Gish Gallop. No wonder I couldn't find anything about it; the post said Gishops Gallop.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by seer View Post
                You know we all have blind spots when it comes to our personal flaws, but it is hard to understand how a man can be so deluded about his own character and abilities...
                I have that thought regularly with regard to posters on this site.

                I welcome explanations from you guys as to why, of all the political parties in all the countries of the world, US conservatives / Republicans are the only ones (that I am aware of anyway, if there are others, feel free to share) who actively do climate-change-denial. What are your explanations for what it is about conservatives in the US that make them different on this issue to conservative groups in other countries, since you rejected my explanations out of hand?
                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                  I have that thought regularly with regard to posters on this site.

                  I welcome explanations from you guys as to why, of all the political parties in all the countries of the world, US conservatives / Republicans are the only ones (that I am aware of anyway, if there are others, feel free to share) who actively do climate-change-denial. What are your explanations for what it is about conservatives in the US that make them different on this issue to conservative groups in other countries, since you rejected my explanations out of hand?
                  Another logical fallacy from Mr PhD! Let's see, we have an appeal to popularity here because who cares what a bunch of non scientist politicians think on climate change anyway? They get their dreams of socialism, more control over peoples lives, more money, and all around greater power. Why wouldn't a politician love climate change and all the things the dooms day climate change prophets say need to happen? It doesn't matter to them how true or false it is, what matters is it gives them everything they desire.

                  Now I wonder if any climate change alarmist could explain any specifics for us, such as:

                  What specific amount of climate change has human activity brought about and how did you reach that conclusion?
                  Why is central planning the only solution to dealing with climate change?
                  What can be done and is it already too late anyway?

                  I personally have no issue with climate change. Only with dooms day alarmist and people using it to bypass the ballet box, so they could enact their dreams of socialism upon the rest of us.
                  "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                  GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    There's a good graph here drawn by a scientist based on the data of the changes over the last 20,000 years. From it, you can see that the kind of temperature change we're looking at this century is comparable to 10,000 years worth of natural change which went from Boston being under a mile of ice to the current temperatures.

                    As the author comments in the mouseover text: "[after setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before."


                    Kinda funny how they only pick the last 20,000 years and ignore the fact the Earth was in an ice age for much of that time and had been warming up as the climate exits the previous ice age. Climate cycles are much longer than 20,000 years. More like 100,000 years. Oops...
                    "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                    GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                    Comment


                    • Carbon footprints of the Telethon stars

                      The A-list celebrities who starred in the telethon for those affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have clocked up hundreds of thousands of air miles which have fuelled rising temperatures and helped create devastating storms.

                      Tuesday night's Hand in Hand: A Benefit for Hurricane Harvey Relief included performances and messages from Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, George Clooney, Cher and Leonardo DiCaprio.

                      They appealed to viewers to donate to help fund relief efforts after the disastrous storms hit the southern US.

                      But a MailOnline investigation has revealed the extent to which stars have contributed to the catastrophic weather phenomenons with their jet-setting lifestyles.

                      Justin Bieber is calculated to have travelled at least 136,000 miles in a plane over the last year, environmentalist DiCaprio is believed to have done more than 87,000 miles while fellow actor Clooney did 61,000 miles.

                      Carbon emissions from plane journeys such as the celebrities' cause the earth's temperature to heat and the resulting higher ocean temperatures lead to more powerful hurricanes. The higher temperatures over land and sea mean the storms generate more energy.

                      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4seEWHdE1
                      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                        Where do you think those incentives are coming from? The 195 countries who signed the Paris agreement are all looking at what can be done in their own countries. For many of them, that has been to create financial incentives surrounding the development of new electricity technology.

                        Yes. Who do you think is pushing and funding research into such technologies? Mainly governments concerned about climate change.

                        Inventing better solar panels will put precisely those same coal miners out of work as if the government had clamped down on coal. You're bizarrely treating technological development and the market as if they are 'natural', as opposed to things that the government actively pays for or manages.

                        You're also leaving out the issue of what if the better technology doesn't happen soon enough, isn't good enough, or doesn't fix things fast enough? Your whole attitude amounts to "well let's do nothing to address the problem right now, and let's just live with the negative effects of climate change continuing to accumulate in the present and over the next decade, and while we do that we can optimistically hope that technology that doesn't yet exist might be invented and thus in a few decades time that climate change might eventually plateau if we're lucky and stop getting worse." That's just a dumb approach - it relies on an uncertain future in order to refrain from taking any concrete steps in the present.

                        Furthermore it's important for governments and councils to incorporate climate change models into their future plans. To give an example, one of the effects that the earthquakes a handful of years ago had on my city was that the parts of it nearest the rivers & coast were lowered slightly and this made them flood-prone. A recent government report here has highlighted that this is going to be a huge problem for the city with regard to any amount of climate-change-caused sea-level rise as it will make the flooding in these areas substantially worse. Obviously that is important information for the council to have as it thinks about whether to try to move people out of those areas of the city or to build better flood protection systems. For countries like the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Kiribati and the Maldives that have large low-lying areas, they have a lot of planning to do with regard to any amount of sea level rise.

                        Photo taken by me a few years back. This is the local river, which is tidal this close to the ocean. Its height being above that of nearby houses during high tides or heavy rain = problem. If the ocean gets higher due to climate change = even more problem.

                        [ATTACH=CONFIG]24056[/ATTACH]
                        I have no problems with incentivizing people to develop new technologies, but I do have a problem with artificially decentivizing current technology with penalties and taxes before we have a solution in place. And the best incentive to develop new technologies is the free market and capitalism. The guy who invents the better mouse trap makes the most profit. You can't force inventiveness. It happens in its own time.

                        I did just come across this interesting development that will probably accelerate the adoption of electric cars:

                        Fully charging an electric car battery in 5 minutes with a 300 mile range:
                        https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/12/...-battery-demo/

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Terraceth View Post
                          While I agree that simple free market economics will essentially solve the problem itself, the question is whether, at the speed at which it is currently being solved, it will get solved in time.
                          Like I said above, you can't force inventiveness. You can't throw money at a problem and expect a solution on a schedule. You can't punish people to get them to do something either. Certain inventions just happen in their own time. Technology relies on other technology and builds upon itself. You couldn't have had the telephone before the telegraph or electricity. You could not have sent a man to the moon in the 1800s no matter how much you desired or need to have it done. Solar technology needs to be much more efficient. But you can't just demand it be so. Or say we are going to charge 300% tax on other forms of energy just to make people use solar power even though it is less efficient. All you would do is make the economy fail and destroy the standard of living.

                          Comment


                          • Based on your argument, should you then remove the subsidies of fossil fuel companies? If they're on a level playing field they can then properly compete with alternate energy and let the free market decide.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by EvoUK View Post
                              Based on your argument, should you then remove the subsidies of fossil fuel companies? If they're on a level playing field they can then properly compete with alternate energy and let the free market decide.
                              sure. I think that is the best way to do things. You would need to remove subsidies, kickbacks and tax breaks from solar and alternative energy sources too.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                                sure. I think that is the best way to do things. You would need to remove subsidies, kickbacks and tax breaks from solar and alternative energy sources too.
                                Something that economists point out the free market has problems with is 'externalities' ("a consequence of an industrial or commercial activity which affects other parties without this being reflected in market prices"). A good example of an externality is pollution - say a company can save $10,000 by pouring their toxic sludge into the nearest river that a town downstream uses for drinking water, rather than bothering to treat it, then they are financially incentivized and perhaps even legally mandated to do that (if they are legally required to give shareholders a maximum financial return). It usually saves a company money to pollute more rather than taking steps to reduce their smoke or waste emissions, and so in this instance the free market is giving perverse incentives - attempts to compete/save money lead to bad behavior by the company that negatively affect others in society.

                                Carbon emissions are another prime example of an externality. If a company can save $10,000 by emitting a million tonnes of carbon rather than zero, then they are being financially incentivised to be bad actors at the expense of everyone else in the world, and they are not bearing the financial cost of associated with their behavior (the damage that climate change does and the cost it places on others) and the market is not taking their behavior into account properly. This is why most economists think a carbon tax is really important: Because the free market can't properly compare two behaviors and encourage the better one unless you price in the damage caused by the bad behavior. So economists think that governments should say "emitting X tonnes of carbon costs other people $Y, so we're going to tax companies $Y for every X tonnes of carbon they emit", and this allows the free market to make rational price decisions - the choice that companies then face is "well I can emit that huge amount of carbon dioxide and pay the associated tax reflecting the cost to society of that action, or I can take steps to mitigate my emission which will cost me $Z" and the company can make a rational and reasonable decision based on that.

                                If there is no carbon tax, and companies pay no price for emitting a trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide each, then as long as coal remains even a dollar cheaper than solar, then companies are incentivised by the market to use coal over solar and even legally required to do so if they have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. This is why not merely left-leaning Greenies, but also economists of pretty much all stripes, think there should be a carbon tax in order to properly level the playing field and let the market have the financial information it needs to make rational decisions.
                                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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