[Mallee Boy]

(I think it is a fair & reasonable question to ask)....
...in 10 or 20 years time it is discovered / recognised / acknowledged that climate change is a naturally occurring process and that 'mankinds' contribution to it is so minute as to be barely measureable and of little consequence.

How will the governments of the world wind back the taxation regime that they will have put in place?

Will these governments be able to wean themselves off the "breathing taxes"?

And I wonder who they will blame for the mis-calculations that lead them down this path?

What if the writers of 2012 have got it right?

(I think it is a fair & reasonable question to ask)....
...in 10 or 20 years time it is discovered / recognised / acknowledged that climate change is a naturally occurring process and that 'mankinds' contribution to it is so minute as to be barely measureable and of little consequence.

How will the governments of the world wind back the taxation regime that they will have put in place?

Will these governments be able to wean themselves off the "breathing taxes"?

And I wonder who they will blame for the mis-calculations that lead them down this path?

What if the writers of 2012 have got it right?

The answer to the first two is no way in hell.
3rd is Conservatives will be blamed.
Last: only thing that ends in 2012 is the mayan calendar

[reeftool]

What if the writers of 2012 have got it right?

Then it really doesn't matter, does it?

[causey]

The vast majority of scientists agree global warming is happening and has human causes. (Of course you can quote some 'well respected' scientist who says otherwise--people reject what they don't want to hear. It's called cognitive dissonance.)

But what if global warming does have human causes and is as serious as the most pessimistic of them say it is? Then there will be no taxation whatsoever, indeed. Nor life, however, in some more or less distant future. Or only a vastly diminished kind of (human) life.

What if you're right? Then governments would have no idea how to reimburse the money. They might not want to do it. Governments are evil, aren't they? Compare the foreseeable outcomes.

On the other hand, we will not attend the end of the world anyway. So, having some tax money back would be nice. We'd have so much fun with it!

The vast majority of scientists agree global warming is happening and has human causes. (Of course you can quote some 'well respected' scientist who says otherwise--people reject what they don't want to hear. It's called cognitive dissonance.)

But what if global warming does have human causes and is as serious as the most pessimistic of them say it is? Then there will be no taxation whatsoever, indeed. Nor life, however, in some more or less distant future. Or only a vastly diminished kind of (human) life.

What if you're right? Then governments would have no idea how to reimburse the money. They might not want to do it. Governments are evil, aren't they? Compare the foreseeable outcomes.

On the other hand, we will not attend the end of the world anyway. So, having some tax money back would be nice. We'd have so much fun with it!

Would have been more believable if it wasn't cnn. And you're right. There are as many who say it's false. But a lot of the original scientist have backed off. Some have even sued algore because he put their name as supporting it and they didn't.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1542332/Cosmic-rays-blamed-for-global-warming.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=c5...6-d702baea2a42

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from
believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2
was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson
said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleocommercial
fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to
climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in
from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada)
Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained.
“Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote. “As the proxy results
began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity
records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time,
[geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how
solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his
conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where
the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that
more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. "When I go to a scientific
meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate
change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall
and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson
told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is
responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the
media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist
David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other
and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific
meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a
Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I
think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is)
we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the
atmosphere," he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not.
The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

[pentaxmz]

(I think it is a fair & reasonable question to ask)....
...in 10 or 20 years time it is discovered / recognised / acknowledged that climate change is a naturally occurring process and that 'mankinds' contribution to it is so minute as to be barely measureable and of little consequence.

That is not entirely true.

Yes, it is true that there have been extreme climate changes throughout history. The latest findings in the Greenland core samples show the most conclusive proof of catastrophic changes in climate.

However, that doesn't diminish or excuse the damage that humans are doing to the earth. There was a time that people thought that the oceans were so vast that it was impossible to pollute them. Now we know better. The same is true for climate. Whether or not we are making a lasting impact on the climate is irrelevant. What is relevant is the real and non-disputable destruction to our environment, the ozone layer, and the significant increase in atmospheric carbon.

It simply makes logical sense to change our bad habits.

IMHO, there is far too much focus on climate change and not enough on what we can and should do to slow down what may seem inevitable.

And I wonder who they will blame for the mis-calculations that lead them down this path?

What miscalculations? Everyone make miscalculations, clearly we saw evidence of this with the 'sudden' financial mess of the U.S. and the world markets. Climatologists also make miscalculations. There are so many factors influencing climate change (natural and man-made), that it is impossible to be precise. But isn't is smarter to error on the side of caution?

Unfortunately, human nature usually doesn't allow for long-term thinking as much as it is interested in short-term gain... 'let the future worry about the future'.

What if the writers of 2012 have got it right?

About what? 2012 is a science fiction movie. There is a vague reference to the Mayan calendar. However, no where in the Mayan's culture or calendar is there any reference to the end of the world. These are fabrications made by people with zero knowledge of anything but profiting off doom and gloom predictions. And it is preposterous to believe there is a planet X about to crash into the Earth, or a neutrino stream from the sun, heating up the Earth's core.

[Ratmagiclady]

Even if somehow, by unprecedented effort, the 'hoax' is *not* in the big profits of those with obvious and well-trumpeted short-term motives, trying to tell people to continue doing things in a way that ....ain't working...

Well. Say, All the conservatives' desperate rationalization is accidentally *right.* Say it's all a hoax.


Ain't gonna put any more cheap oil in the ground.

Just ain't.

We need to be doing other things *ten years ago.*

Twenty would have been better.

Even if you just want it for 'the economy.'

These types have had their way for fifty years, in America.

Notice anything in particular about *the economy* for real people lately? Any kind of trend, there?

[SteveM]

(I think it is a fair & reasonable question to ask)....
...in 10 or 20 years time it is discovered / recognised / acknowledged that climate change is a naturally occurring process and that 'mankinds' contribution to it is so minute as to be barely measureable and of little consequence.

This is kind of a duplicate thread...just commented on it....

How will the governments of the world wind back the taxation regime that they will have put in place?

Depends....there is no free ride. People that ask to pay no taxes remind me of someone that moves back in with their parents when they are 40 and gets offended when they are asked to contribute to the household finances. Bridges, roads, police, fire dept, school, public washrooms, parks, defense, H1N1 vaccine, the list is endless. There will always be tax, I just wish it was used more wisely, which could reduce the amount we pay.

Iraq was the first war in the US that was fought without special tax measures. All wars take decades to pay back, but this one was almost entirely done on credit. The US taxpayers will be paying back that "Visa bill" for many decades.

Will these governments be able to wean themselves off the "breathing taxes"?

Pick your poison...you need to pick the formula that pays for all that crap you get for free.

And I wonder who they will blame for the mis-calculations that lead them down this path?

What if the writers of 2012 have got it right?

It makes a good movie....and a good reason to hold a party! My guess is that you'll still be paying your taxes in 2013....

See comments above....

[Mallee Boy]

As I said Ladies & Gentlemen....what if ?

We also need to be asking "what if" when as RML says, there is no more oil in the ground. What will power our cars? Electricity? how do we generate it without creating more pollution?
My scepticism extends to believing that we are being ripped to hell by oil companies and car manufacturers who could , if they wanted to, put out alternatives to the combustion engine that relies on oil. But why would they at the moment? Ask yourself the "what if" from the oil companies & car manufacturers point of view....doesn't bear thinking about.

Oil companies are having an absolute field day, consumers are now programmed to pay anything for fuel....so make hay while the sun shines.

Whats the betting that when (if) the oil supplies get to crisis levels that some new fuel will miraculously appear, marketed by the new look oil companies at 2 or 3 times the price of oil.

Laugh if you like, but in my lifetime I have gone from riding into town on a horse & buggy as a small child, growing up with 32 volt power, seeing this marvellous thing called a television (hear they got coloured ones now ), seeing man land on the moon on that black & white TV, to now thinking nothing of jumping on a plane and flying half around the world in 12 or so hours to watch the shuttle take off......and we want to speculate on what the next 60 years will bring. Be my guest, knock yourself out.

The vested interests have way too much invested to not do anything else.

Somewhere in the this climate debate is some middle ground, some balance between what we can actually do and what we can afford to do.

We all have a responsibility to find that balance and to neither do nothing nor mortgage our childrens children lives to those who see the climate change as a chance to make money for the sake of making money.

How do we seek that balance? We debate, we question, we scrutinise... we keep the bastards honest. (to borrow a term).

Mallee, estimates are we have 100 years of fuel at present consumption. But that doesn't in clude the US's off limits areas. I've seen geo. reports that we have way more than the middle east supplies.

[Mallee Boy]

Mallee, estimates are we have 100 years of fuel at present consumption. But that doesn't in clude the US's off limits areas. I've seen geo. reports that we have way more than the middle east supplies.

.......damn, now you tell me...I could have bought a V8 after all.

.......damn, now you tell me...I could have bought a V8 after all.

Good thing you didn't. These marxist will tax the hell out of fuel soon.

[SteveM]

If I look back 100 years, fish stocks, forests etc, there is a big change. The rate of change is far greater now that it was 100 years ago. I think we will be forced to change.....could be nasty.

Re oil, I don't think we'll be OK if we put another 100 years worth into the atmosphere... I have 2 points.

1) If we do come up with something, it better not be worse than the item we are trying to fix. Mercury in compact flourescents (they are "supposed" to be returned for disposal.....but we all know that they end up in the landfill. You're supposed to get your kids outside if one breaks in the house. Then there is hybrid cars.....and all the lead that goes into the batteries....which need to be replaced after a while.

2) Right now we think we "need" bananas delivered cheaply to the north in winter....we "need" to be around the world in 12 hours. Those things are made possible due to cheap transportation (oil). I doubt we'll find a magic replacement for oil.....but we'll adapt.

Here was my comment on the other thread.....yes joking but to make a point.

OK ..let me get this straight...

If I turn my car on in my garage with the door closed it's a bad thing... Why?, cause it is pumping out stuff that isn't OK for me....carbon monoxide etc. OK..I get that.

If everyone turns on their cars and drives downtown...every day...for decades...that's OK. Why?...cause it's outside. Outside goes on like forever...the smelly gas goes away..

Oh..you're telling me it doesn't go away? Where does it go?... What?...there is a set limit to where the stinky gas can go?..and we keep adding to it? I don't like that...so I'm not going to believe it. Just like the poop Victoria pumps directly into the ocean every day....it goes away and I don't see it anymore...so it doesn't exist. I'm looking at the ocean from my window right now...no poop!...poop doesn't exist... I like to believe that people never poop...it's better that way.

Sooner or later we are going to realize that we have sh*t the bed....but for right now we'll just lay still and pretend it didn't happen....

[mickeyobe]

"...in 10 or 20 years time it is discovered / recognised / acknowledged that climate change is a naturally occurring process and that 'mankinds' contribution to it is so minute as to be barely measureable and of little consequence."

I am a firm non believer in human caused climate change.

It is a recurring cycle caused by the sun and we have no control over it.

Al Gore is a dangerous demagogue who distorts facts to fit his scenario.

Mickey

Even if somehow, by unprecedented effort, the 'hoax' is *not* in the big profits of those with obvious and well-trumpeted short-term motives, trying to tell people to continue doing things in a way that ....ain't working...

Well. Say, All the conservatives' desperate rationalization is accidentally *right.* Say it's all a hoax.


Ain't gonna put any more cheap oil in the ground.

Just ain't.

We need to be doing other things *ten years ago.*

Twenty would have been better.

Even if you just want it for 'the economy.'

These types have had their way for fifty years, in America.

Notice anything in particular about *the economy* for real people lately? Any kind of trend, there?

Seems that the biggest profits are in algore's pockets. To the tune of 8 million dollars per year he's out of office.