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Fluffeh writes:
"For a few years the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have been working to put together a set of standards for teaching science in public education schools. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards. Wyoming doesn't appear to have issues with evolution. Instead, climate science appears to be the problem. That's not because any of the legislators have actually studied the science involved and found it lacking. The issue appears to be solely with the implications of the science.
State Representative Matt Teeters had this to say '[The standards] handle global warming as settled science. There's all kind of social implications involved in that that I don't think would be good for Wyoming.' Specifically, Teeters seems to think that having citizens of the state accept climate science would 'wreck Wyoming's economy,' which relies heavily on fossil fuel production."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday March 17 2014, @01:14PM
I refuse to call it "climate change" as that is bullshit, there has never been a point in this planet's violent history when climate DIDN'T change, might as well cal it "weather change" for all the good that BS name does. But here is my problem with it...AGW discussion has been hijacked by a handful of rich leeches on the ass of society that have turned ANY chance to change anything into a repeat of Reagan era trickle down voodoo economics.
For example look up "Al Gore carbon billionaire" to see how a guy that farts around in a personal Lear jet and owns a McMansion with its own ACed basketball court has turned any talk of footprint reduction into "carbon indulgences" where the rich like himself won't be affected (and in fact will get tax breaks for being pigs by buying "carbon credits" from their own shell corps overseas, thus allowing them to also avoid paying taxes on gains) or this scam by Goldman Sachs [nakedcapitalism.com], the only corp that can give Monsanto and Halliburton a run for "most evil corp" that will let them pull the same credit default swap scam with any implementation of cap and trade. And notice how neither Gore nor GS says a single word about limiting trade with China and India, the 2 biggest polluters? Why don't be silly, it would limit our profits lulz.
So until I see actual solutions proposed that are NOT able to be condensed to "take more money from the poor and give to the 1%" you can be damned sure I will fight tooth and nail against AGW. Is it happening? Probably but don't be fooled into having a "we have to DO something!" mindset because powerful forces are spending huge amounts of money to make sure that "something" will only produce what we've had far too much of the last 40 years, the concentration of the world's wealth into the hands of the top 1%, who already have stolen more than 86% of the wealth of the planet and leave us to fight over the scraps. If they have their way we'll be paying a "carbon tax" directly to them while they get tax credits for sending factories to countries that refuse to play the carbon shell game.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:08AM
I'm with you on the evil corporations bit.
However, saying you don't "support AGW" (whatever that means) is kind of like saying we should immediately defund the fire department because one of the firefighters is a douchebag, even though you know at least one house across town is on fire right now, and if they don't put it out your own house could eventually be consumed like that giant conflagration in Chicago decades ago.
Look, we can agree that the immediate impact of AGW isn't so scary that we have to immediately hop on the solutions bandwagon. The thing is, though, if we're going to take a long-term view, it becomes very important to focus on what the right thing is to do, because while the planet will happily continue to spin right up to the Red Giant stage of our local nuclear reactor called the Sun, whether or not Homo Sapiens survives the journey is very much in question. We're tenacious little bastards certainly, but if we don't get sustainable habitation out into space fast enough, the next K-T event [wikipedia.org] could be the end of the line for us. Or if Yellowstone pops. Or if we screw up our ecology enough that our society in total doesn't have the resources to support a full space program, because we're busy fighting wars over shrinking island spaces in the habitable zones, and we never get there.
Humanity is big enough, collectively, that "don't shit where you sleep" now applies to the entire planet, in a broader sense. We need to adjust our behavior accordingly.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:40AM
If your fire dept was taken over by a group that raised taxes by 3000% and sent it overseas and gave you in return a picture of a fire truck would YOU support them? It honestly doesn't matter whether AGW is 100% proven or not if THE ONLY SOLUTIONS the 1% allow are "Give us money to send more jobs to China" and that is ALL we are getting. Carbon indulgences, cap and trade, its gonna not cause AGW to drop by a single ounce, and in fact might speed it up as it sends more to countries that have less protections than the west, so all you are doing by supporting the "We gotta DO something!" mindset is giving the 1% more money for doing jack shit....is that REALLY what you want?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:46PM
You say that like there's only two solutions to this problem. That's a false dichotomy.
Due to consumer pressure, MBA types have decided it's now a great idea to start playing the Green Business game. Now that they've begun to bother with it, many have discovered that they could have been saving money all this time doing things like growing grass on the roof of their big manufacturing facility, cooling it by absorbing sunlight rather than let it hit the aluminum panels and reducing the energy bill for air conditioning. When that reduces load on the coal-fired power plant, this is a very positive step against AGW, not to mention waste in general.
Yes, industrial operations are a disproportionate percentage of the waste, and keeping them following the spirit of the solutions available will require vigilance. Yes, cap-and-trade has some problems. There's not always a silver lining to every aspect of the issue. But the only way to ensure failure is to stick your head in the sand and refuse to do anything about it.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"