h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>Green Peace is funded by its members

yes, the reason I won't join - they take the money direct from your account.

Happy, there's bound to be more water vapour if the global climate is warming - whether it's due to human influences or not. I guess it must be just the speed of the increase that's taken them by surprise.

I didn't know GP was insisting on d/d magrat. Are you sure? I'd be surprised if all their members had bank accounts.

The Industrial revolution threw a few lucky countries into lives of splendour. We can sit back and feel thankful for our glorious possessions and lifestyles - I enjoy and love the life my family and friends enjoy. One of these luxuries is my ability to travel the world.

I've been to third world countries in Africa and Asia and these people struggle. It's the struggle we can see and read about when going to museums - and god I enjoyed seeing how people lived in Europe hundreds of years ago - but what a shock (what an innocent I was!) when I saw people really lived like that. Not jolly forigners but hardworking struggling prideful people. I think it is cruel and barbaric if we take away there rights to prosper like we did and do, burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees to make enough affordable food for there people. If we agree business has no compassionate heart - and if this business money controls and invests in world governments then rest assured they are not worried about a forest, (Look at America's and Western Europe's developments - constantly encroaching on green field sites) all they worry about is falling profits!

When third world countries spend the next 100/200 years producing, building, makeing. They can then sit back and think of alternative power sources and more "enviromentally friendly" processes - but not now - not when people starve and they live by open sewers. Remember the day these doom and gloom scenarios begin - and the prediction that everyone will get asthma and skin cancer comes true - believe me First World businesses and governments will spend there Billons on buying up land to grow forests plus they could use all those GM seeds to grow food/trees on the dry empty lands in Australia - the plains of Siberia, the Sahara desert..... and re-oxygenate the world! But they won't because it's a falsehood!

I love heated debate and theories, i'll listen and enjoy stories of aliens and killer wasps. But when a human being - the most important and precious - is starving or persecuted then theories count towards nothing. Pick Malawi, a central African country with green and beautiful lands - but see how sick their children are. Hunger, Leprosy, worms. We care about middle class children with an allergy and we whine. A few thousand miles away a mother loses children and relatives to a easily curable disease - First World help themselves - anything else is a small bandaid for profit or to make us feel better. I've seen reality and it stinks!

Don't actually disagree with what you say about world suffering. People are starving and dying of easily curable diseases and some of the governments and businesses of the world seem to be at the root of it. That doesn't, however, make the science of global warming a lie. Either the climate is warming or it isn't. Either it will be catastrophic or it won't. It doesn't depend on whether all humans are happy, healthy and well fed. You're opinion that it isn't happening won't stop it happening.

Wouldn't it be simple if the 6 billion+ people on this planet could all pull in the same direction to end world poverty and stop the climate from doing anything inconvenient? Have you noticed how that never happens - people all pulling in the same direction because it is in all their interests to do so? It's not a conspiracy that stops them acting or changing direction. It's most likely apathy and inertia.

The efforts by scientists, environmental pressure groups and responsible governments to come to an agreement at Kyoto, far from stopping developing countries burning fossil fuels just when they might have had the chance to escape from their poverty, would have allowed them to burn more fossil fuels than they actually have the capacity to burn. They would've been able to sell any excess carbon rights to the developed countries. It's rich, developed countries that would have had to tighten their belts. That's why Bush wouldn't sign. That doesn't sound to me, like an evil conspiracy by the scientists to keep the poor in thrall to the rich.

It's a rotten shame really that we can never seem to co-ordinate our efforts to get anything done. Trouble is, we're pulled in so many different directions and it's bl**dy difficult to know what the truth is. We're inundated with information and misinformation. Not only do we have conflicting information from what seem to be reliable sources, but we have the media bending and exaggerating the truth, the government spinning, businesses lying and every type of X-File subscribing extremist dreaming up conspiracy theories. It's no wonder most people just ignore the whole lot of them.

>I didn't know GP was insisting on d/d magrat. Are you sure? I'd be surprised if all their members had bank accounts.


thats how they do it in west aust

In response to the point about disinformation... I think its a shame that people just ignore everything cos there is a good deal of information and alternative analysis available. It can be difficult to ascertain the quality of that info, 'truth' itself being a sticky concept.

But i would suggest that you try to get hold of manufacturing consent, by noam chomskey - or take a look at something like Zmag online.

I would like see everything summarised on a sheet of A4 "World Problems and how to Solve them" (Beginners Guide) I haven't found that anywhere yet.

purplejenny

I'm a latecomer to this thread, so apologies for any repetition.

The world's climate changes all the time.

We seem to be in the middle of a long-term warming - even the oil-funded scientists will probably agree to that.

For the last 200 years, human activity has poured vast quantities of "unnatural" substances into the atmosphere.

For the last several thousand years, human activity has removed forests, changed drainage patterns, wiped out species and produced new ones (some of which turned out to be inconvient).

Whether any human action can be big enough to have caused, or even influenced, the global climate change is a matter for endless debate.

Whatever, much of what we pump out into the atmosphere (and water, and land...) is harmful, and we should amend our habits.

Whatever, the global temperature is rising, seas are rising, ice caps are melting, countries both rich and poor are going to see their coastlines inundated over the next fifty years, polar bears may become extinct, insurance policies may become impossible to fund...

Kyoto was a move in the right direction, though possibly for the wrong reasons - global warming may not be our fault, we may not be as powerful as we think, but changing our poisonous habits would be a good idea anyway.

More important, and even more difficult, is to look at things on the human scale. If the Maldives are under water, if Bangladesh loses a third of its usable land, what about the people? Do we leave them to drown or starve?

The rich nations may or may not have contributed to the climate change, but the question of these people's lives is entirely separate from that.

Agreed.

Regardless of whether it has been proved, the damage is still being done.

I agree with you purplejenny. But that was the point I was trying to make. It's not that there's no information to be had but there's too much information and a lot of it contradictory. I think it would be very nice if people would, so to speak, bite the bullet and get stuck in despite all the difficulties. That's probably not going to happen. People like things to be simple and straight forward. Give us a simple, unambiguous target we can aim at or leave us alone, is the attitude of a lot of people. They don't want to be confused or accused so they just ignore it all and get on with simpler things. Your idea of an A4 sheet with all the salient facts set out, is excellent. When you've found one or put one together, perhaps you can post it here

I also agree with Mund.

Please can someone expain.

If this treaty allows third world countries to sell us their pollutant rights does that:

1)If we buy up one countries rights, we can set up factories in our First World country pumping out those payed for fumes - which would result in the Third world country having to stop it's own "Industrial Revolution", because rights have been sold - Surely that just protects the First Worlds monopoly on making stuff?

2)If we buy the rights of a particular country ie Bangladesh - and we set up factories there - would First World countries skim the profits while employing children and other cheap workers that have no unions, no workers rights and can be exploited to the max?

Is the treaty a clever ruse for the companies that fund political partyies and governments, to aquire monopolies and/or cheaper, easy to abuse workers?

WW,
I believe you are only reffering to the pollution trading part of the treaty that the americans insisted on, pushed by BIG corporations, being included in the agreement long before bush pulled out of it all together, again heavily influenced by multinationals.
This withdrawl from the agreement, was supposedly to stop the economic slow down of the us economy, as growth of an econmoy (profits for shareholders and those with capital) is seen by capatilist as the most important goal, while they stick two fingers up at the importance of people and the environment!

z.

Although the urge of developing countries to follow in the foot steps of the U.S. and other industrialized countries is huge, especially with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc pressuring governments to go their way, our path is not necesarily what the majority of people in developing countries want to follow. I think its important to stop imposing on other countries and let them follow their own paths, learning hopefully from the "developed world's" mistakes, which includes Bushes' failure to ratify the Global Warming Treaty!

Strider25, from down under (South America that is!!)

Perhaps a more serious matter is the speach that GW gave yesterday. He appears to be preparing US Citizens to start hating the Chinese.

The US has just recently finished pounding the few remaining "rogue countries" into the stoneage (with the support of the British Govt). It is now intent on breaking up the Nuclear Arms Peace that we have been living in since 1972.

Listen to the words "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and think to your self is North Korea about to launch an offensive on the US or will the US launch a cruise missile at them?

For those who are not sure then consider the unprovoked missile attack on Sudan that some how managed to miss the press. Try this and see if you remember..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/monitoring/newsid_425000/425919.stm#top

Appologies, Way off the Global Warming track.
Does any one know a thread for this?

I'll make that thread.

Why worry about Global warming when a looney right wing Bush is in the whitehouse!

Can't MI6 earn their dosh and brainwash, kidnap or garotte Bush into thinking we arn't all jolly foreigners trying to kill America.

The cruise missile attack was launched (if I remember correctly) during the Clinton administration a little while after the Monica thing came out. It didn't manage to miss the media because I was watching CNN when the thing went down. They had reporters on the scene and showed thier *glorious* pictures of the factory on fire, in ruins, and the couple casualties that were caused. Any military action by the United States certainly does not go unnoticed by media, period.

Bush maybe trying to get Americans to hate the Chinese but what of it? When they had our airmen there was a self imposed boycott going around against chinese items. I'd go into Kmart or Walmart and there would be a guy there reminding me not to buy anything made by the chinese. The chinese gov't has been trying to use the force of nationalism to keep thier crumbling regime intact. The easiest target is us.

Breaking up the nuclear arms peace that we have been in since 1972? I assume you are speaking of Missile Defense? I have asked this question time and again and only one person has ever responded to it with an actual answer, perhaps you two can give me a responce. What is it about missile defense that you object to? If you aren't talking about missile defense what are you saying will disrupt nuclear peace?

The thing about the missile defence is that until now none of the major players would risk firing off a nuke at anyone because they know that their target or one of its allies would do the same in retaliation and they would go bye bye.
If the US and its allies had the missile defence it would break this stalemate allowing the US to fire its nuke off to any communist country it felt like.
Even with the US offering to give the technology to anyone not opposing the treaty there is still the fear that the US will be able to build the system first leaving them vulnerable. Plus the US would still probably be the most likely to have the ability to disable anyone elses defence ability afterwards.

Saying all that I think its a good idea anyways but there are real reasons for countries being opposed to it.

Consider the parties involved in world peace, Russia, China and The Rest of the World.

Russia :
We have the capacity to destroy USA currently. If 5-10 yrs we will not have the capacity and US will be clearly superior. In order to maintain status quo lets destroy the US.

China:
We are getting left behind in the arms race. Time to step up that Briefcase Nuke Project with another $1 Bln. US is dividing our country in half and this must be stopped.

World:
US must post listening stations in our countries (South Korea,UK,Italy etc..) That would make us a direct target for ICBM and Briefcase terrorism. I am effectively shooting my self in the foot.

United Rogue States:
We are OK because we are planning Checmical weapons any way

US:
I know that the entire world is watching me, but they don't know that I know that. . . .ha ha ha ha ha . . . What are you looking at ?

China has the fastest growing "crubling" economy that I have ever seen (Please check your stats from the Economist from now on)

Hey,
Yopwzupman!

The rest of the world is a bit scared of that nutter george w, losing and picking a fight because america is 'indestructible'.

He's already winding up the chinese - the only real threat to american supremacy, except maybe the growing strength of the anti-capitalist movement!

Z.