by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Sun, August 19th, 2012
Tags: general debate
General debate, August 19, 2012
Published: August 19, 2012
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This is a cheesy video, but the concern represented is real enough. It is vastly more concerning (or should be) than the AGW thing. But sadly this world of morons has been brainwashed into the AGW scaremongering so the distraction to the real threat goes unseen (or unresponded too).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESvG8t60-FY&feature=player_embedded#!
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The morons are those who reject the overwhelming scientific consensus. And it is doubly moronic to claim that people are taking AGW too seriously when the world is hardly doing anything about it at all.
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Vladimir Putin – Asshole of the Week
Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Pussy Riot causing a public disturbance and everything to do with closing down criticism of the current regime…
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Valis:
Do you know what atomic radiation does do living cells, And how long it hangs around for?
You’re backing the wrong horse, even if the earth does get a little warmer. That’s the point of ‘moronism’. Poor prioritisation.
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The morons are those who reject the overwhelming scientific consensus. And it is doubly moronic to claim that people are taking AGW too seriously when the world is hardly doing anything about it at all.
It’s such a shame that the international climate change conference was such an incredible farce then isn’t it.
Who are the bigger morons, the people struggling to accept anthropogenic climate change, or the people that think they can change human nature without the help of religious compulsion or military force?
If AGW is in fact occurring (and I accept there is a strong possibility) it is inextricably linked to the rapid consumption of resources due to our current economic model, I would love to know how we can change this without triggering a massive crisis all of its own.
The biggest threat to humanity is still humanity itself, you would have to be a moron to think we are at more risk from rising sea levels than war over the next century.
Unfortunately for us, we will likely solve climate change issues by default by killing off a good proportion of our population in the next world war, or simply consuming ourselves to death.
Those that claim they can ‘save us’ will continue to do so because there are enough gullible people around that will give them the political power they seek.
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Do you know what atomic radiation does do living cells, And how long it hangs around for?
I made no comment on your link, which I haven’t looked at. It may discuss a serious issue, but given how you dealt with the also serious issue of catastrophic climate change, I had no desire to humour you by looking.
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Which one? They’re held every year. They’ve all been pretty farcical.
Who are the bigger morons, the people struggling to accept anthropogenic climate change, or the people that think they can change human nature without the help of religious compulsion or military force?
I fear you may be correct, as neither reason nor emotional appeal have worked so far. Religion certainly hasn’t helped and military force is not able to be harnessed for such a purpose as avoiding climate change. So I’ll stick with democracy and reason though we truly may be doomed. Giving up is not an option.
If AGW is in fact occurring (and I accept there is a strong possibility) it is inextricably linked to the rapid consumption of resources due to our current economic model, I would love to know how we can change this without triggering a massive crisis all of its own.
As above, only with reason and effort. Keep talking about it. Read Steve Keen, who is visiting NZ soon and has written an amazing book on neoclassical economics called Debunking Economics.
The biggest threat to humanity is still humanity itself,
I don’t think anyone has argued otherwise.
you would have to be a moron to think we are at more risk from rising sea levels than war over the next century.
They are both terrible risks, except that climate change is already happening (and sea level rise is the least of it), while nuke war is still possible to avoid. And you’re the one who thinks we shouldn’t try to reduce the number of nukes, which can only make it more likely.
Those that claim they can ‘save us’ will continue to do so because there are enough gullible people around that will give them the political power they seek.
Fortunately, not everyone is as cynical as you, nor seeking change purely for person gain.
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Andrew – We know enough about Fukushima to worry about it. We know enough about Fukushima to know we can’t do anything more about it than has already been done.
…and it isn’t more dangerous to our species than AGW. Nor is this a reasonable thing to put ahead of AGW which is not a matter of scaremongering or brainwashing… except among the ignoranti who continue to wilfully misunderstand it.
We know enough about nuclear energy and nuclear power to know that there are better reactions available INCLUDING reactions that burn the waste into less dangerous forms. It is something that can be managed.
It can be managed more easily than climate change. Almost EVERYTHING is more manageable than climate change.
As a result I and others with working brains, prefer nuclear power plants to coal and gas power plants, particularly in places where there is scant access to any renewables.
Japan is one of those places. Tepco and the Japanese authorities failed woefully in their design by placing that plant where they did. No graduate of Rickover’s program would have permitted it… and it is worth noting that a similar plant, closer to the earthquake epicenter suffered little damage and served as a shelter for people in the aftermath.
The problem with this waste is that it hasn’t been burned YET, not that it will be toxic for 100000 years. It is dangerous in its current form and can be used to produce power, and in the process be made far less dangerous. There is a KNOWN solution to this problem. It isn’t particularly expensive, and it isn’t massively difficult for a single nation to organize and handle the waste.
AGW will also affect every living thing on earth, and unlike the uncontrolled release of all the nuclear waste, or nuclear war, it is already happening. Yet while there is no option for controlling it and no method of reversing it… we are still emitting CO2.
Like this.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html
Causing this.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/arctic-sea-ice/
and this
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.abstract
and so the world grain crop is down – globally, not locally – and hunger is a potent killer and cause of war.
I know which one is more CERTAIN to be dangerous to my children. The one that is already happening, can trigger the other and cannot be reversed gets my attention. The other gets my suggestion that building plants to burn the waste might be an idea whose time has come. It isn’t as though we do not know how, and using Thorium reactions and some of the newer reactor designs, I am happy to have countries that need power, getting it from nuclear energy rather than coal or gas.
Who are the bigger morons, the people struggling to accept anthropogenic climate change, or the people that think they can change human nature without the help of religious compulsion or military force?
Good question Shunda, if we understand it without taking offense. I personally have been working hard on this party to get it to work with the things it CAN change, to get the world to change without altering human nature… the confrontational approach is part of the heritage of the Green “movement” and it affects the party’s approach to issues. The environmental movement tends to charge headlong at things… and some things don’t respond well to that approach, as you note.
Because we don’t have to change human nature. We have to change the economic system… and we don’t have to worry about triggering a crisis, the economic system has done that to itself already. It is ripe for changing.
The first step will probably need to be an economic policy initiative by the Greens to take the control of our money back within the government itself. Not the reserve bank setting rates to determine how much our foreign banker “friends” will create each month, but actual control by the treasury, of the number of dollars that are in circulation.
A tax on CO2 emissions can be imposed as well, in place of the current ETS, and unlike some Greens I would not count certain types of agricultural emissions.
We can get there by not confronting bankers and businesses, but by moving the economic ground on which they stand.
Those that claim they can ‘save us’ will continue to do so because there are enough gullible people around that will give them the political power they seek
Hahaha! Funny – You make a joke about our inability to get more than 15% of the vote right? Joke about our inability to get a say in government right?
No???
I suggest that you’ve misread the NZ public as well as the election results if you think that this is the dominant meme in this country.
The truth is that despite the higher quality of Green candidates and leadership, we are in opposition, and have been forever. We can do better in the next election, maybe. If Mother Nature whacks the Northern Hemisphere again next season farm profits will go ballistic, which would improve the economy enough for NAct to do well… the real lesson would not hit home for at least another 3 years.
We have to do better.
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One way I suggest the Green Party could do better is by including on your web site issue page http://www.greens.org.nz/issues links to:
AGW
Ocean acidification
Peak Oil/Gas/Uranium
Sea Level Rise
etc
Trevor.
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Valis:
So you don’t want to humour me? Who gives a shit who I am. You should look at the link if you think it might have some value in its own right.
bjchip:
I think we’ve got about 600 odd nuclear power plants on the planet – many, maybe most, driven and managed by people who care about n.o.t.h.i.n.g but money. I understand that many of those plants are being dangerously pushed past their use-by date due to….Money. This is because money controls the regulatory bodies. My point is in this world today you can’t isolate the human factor in determining “manageable”. We live in a corrupt reality infested with power-seeking sociopaths.
I agree new power plants are a different story due, potentially, to their inherently safe structure. Such as thorium based pebble-bed reactors. But I’m worried about all the existing loose-cannon reactors out there, and all that nuclear waste.
How safe will an old crappy reactor be when it becomes a strategic target in the next major war?
As I’ve said before: We can adapt to a warmer world – not a radioactive world.
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By making the point of your post a stupid comment about climate change, you showed it was YOU who didn’t place much value on your anonymous link. If you want a serious discussion about another topic, then be serious.
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I feel like an extra on the set of a huge splatter/zombie movie being directed by Bill English and Steven Joyce and the Smiling Assassin taking the lead role. I’m sure Gerry Brownlee’s cosy relationship with Sir Peter Jackson had more to it than just screwing over a few actors.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/national-making-huge-slashzombie-movie.html
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Valis:
It was serious. I have this vision in my head of all these people pushing for a reduction in CO2 emissions while all these latent Fukushima’s go on cranking…with almost no one opposing them because they are only scared of what they have been taught to be scared of.
Or maybe they are more interested in joining a group and fighting for a cause to bring some kind of meaning to their lives, rather just than identifying and addressing real problems. That would explain a lot, because then it does really matter what the ’cause’ is.
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…I meant “doesn’t” matter what the cause it.
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Sorry Andrew, but most are not “latent Fukushimas” as most do not have the same earthquake-tsunami risk profile. All they are, are temporary storage for some stuff that is actually a fuel source (for the right reactors), and the people running them are not in general, incompetent.
I DO agree that it is better if they are not run for profit.
I have often said “You can have safe nuclear power or you can have nuclear power for profit. There is no ‘and’ in the preceding sentence”. I would accordingly wish for all of them to be taken under government control but I do NOT regard them as dangers of the same order as AGW.
There are relatively easy solutions to them ( Not for profit, waste burning reactions etc ). There are no such answers to AGW.
I won’t speak of war. IF it comes to a war of that scale we’re finished as a civilization in any case, and probably finished as a species. If it is more restrained I would expect that the plants will not be targeted… and the war may not happen, or may be between countries we cannot anticipate at present. The “war” scenario is entirely speculative in extent, probability and nature.
The probability of Climate Change on the other hand, is unity (barring a nuclear winter scenario). It is already happening and is getting worse. The damage it can do to civilization CAN trigger wars, but even without a war, could destroy our civilization. Risk management says to me that we do whatever we can to avoid any more of it than we have already forced.
ciao
BJ
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AA – I don’t in general follow links to videos, partly because despite being on broadband, the download rate is not particularly brilliant, and I am not set up to save any videos that I do watch. If it is important, I am sure that you could find some links to the source information that are in some form of text format rather than a “cheesy video”.
The danger from radioactive material is often overestimated. There are millions of tonnes of naturally occurring Uranium 235 and 238 in the Tasman sea plus some decay products from some of the Uranium that has already started decaying, and other natural sources of radioactivity. We are here despite or even because of that natural background radioactivity.
One of the reasons radioactivity or radiation in general is scary is because it can’t be seen or felt and the damage is not immediate, yet it can be detected to very low levels by suitable instruments. That sensitivity can cause people to overestimate the risk because they don’t see the natural background radiation either.
I am against nuclear power plants such as Fukushima, where the safety approach was “it won’t happen”. However a nuclear power plant built and operated according to much more sensible safety planning would be a lot safer and would release a heck of a lot less radioactive material during its operation than any coal-fired power station. For countries with high population densities such as Japan, I know which I would prefer they use.
Trevor.
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bjchip: Apparently a nuclear power plant has already been targeted (I’m not sure if it was destroyed) in the middle east sometime.
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One that was under construction, yes. … and the US and Israel seem to harbor some notion of doing some nastiness to some Iranian installations too, though not in the way of targeting a working nuclear power plant.
A war for resources is unlikely to engage targets that might render the resources unusable. One has to also consider who the antagonists wind up being in the various scenarios that provide for war, and only a few involve nuclear power. North vs South Korea, India vs Pakistan, USA/China/Russia. Israel vs Everyone.
For any given war to ensue, the countries involved have to remain organized entities despite massive internal stresses. This is more likely now than in the future, as climate change starts to stress them, a disintegrating nation is simply ripe for plucking and an intact power station is a prized bit of fruit.
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Sadly Kate Wilkinson is doing what many National Ministers do, reinterpreting the law and ensuring the “facts” are shaped to suit their agenda. Considering the amount of stress and anxiety she is causing amongst those of us who care about preserving our natural heritage within our conservation parks I think she should be called the Minister of Consternation.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/kate-wilkinson-minister-of-consternation.html
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Frucking frackers!
http://robertguyton.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/frucking-frackers.html
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sprout:
Do the left have an agenda? Try this out for size. It’s commentary on the “left wing” philosophy behind modern planning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHWsdimVO4
The Agenda21 ‘vision’ is something I have long opposed because, environmentally speaking, it is and always has been a blunt lie. It’s the kind of stuff that makes good people question what’s really going on behind much of the environmental movement.
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Julie Anne Genter achieves an easy knockout against a struggling political heavyweight.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/brownlee-suffers-knockout-in-transport.html
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Andrew Atkin – Sorry Andrew – a talk from a random blogger at a US Tea Party meeting is the most convincing evidence that you can provide to support your argument?
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Keys euthanasia gaff
It’s bad enough to make up a story to try and justify his noncommittal to changing euthanasia laws, but to say that doctors are routinely breaking the law and the government knows about it while doing nothing is entirely unacceptable…
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sprout:
Now who do you believe? If someone with the “right” credentials tells you what is what, then do you just get on your knees and lap it up?
I myself never outright accept anything anyone says. I consider the reasoning to see if it makes sense – in part, totally, or at all. Why don’t you take that position yourself and just listen to what she has to say? Ask yourself if there is any truth in it, or possible truth in it? Or is that too scary…too scary to see if some of those core assumptions might be wrong?
If you want evidence on the b.s of Agenda21, look at my ‘smart growth’ post where I blow up most of the nonsense claims relating to it, with a string of explanations. You don’t need to site credentials – just use your head.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/smart-growth.html
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Andrew – could you please which section from the actual Agenda 21 document what you object to?
When there is so much stuff that could be read I do tend to have a filter system and while there are probably some very nice “Tea Party” people they would not be my first option as a source of accurate information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y
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Sprout,
Firstly the speaker is not a ‘tea party’ person – she was invited to speak to a tea party conference. She works for the US department of transportation (I think?).
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/board-of-directors.html
I’ve loosely been through Agenda21 and I’m not going to do it again (yes, it’s tedious), but it makes affirmative references (a bit scattered) to anti-sprawl focused development, and what is called transit oriented development. Long referred to as “smart growth”. But it’s a largely vague document meant as a guideline for local policy development. We have Smart Growth in NZ today and the ideology is clearly claimed to represent “sustainability”, and it is pure bullshit on the grounds of positive environmentalism. If you look through the Agenda21 you might also notice it makes constant reference to “human resource development”…sounds a bit like creating an army of Julie-Anne Genter’s to push their brand of “sustainability”.
Have fun if you will:
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml
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Gerry Brownlee has made the point that if we used today’s evaluation criteria, the Auckland harbor bridge would never have been built. But the harbor bridge created its own demand by facilitating massive, rapid development in the north shore.
Maybe if we build another “holiday highway to nowhere” we will get more new property development to support more growth out of Auckland. Which is good, because Auckland is so stuffed up with forced-intensification creating serious congestion, that more people are being forced to use public transport. And everybody hates THAT.
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Sorry, Andrew , you sound very much like the Tea Party people when they were asked to be specific about what they disliked about Czars and Obama Care. You have claimed that Agenda 21 is a threat to us all and blindly rely on someone else’s interpretation. Your own knowledge of the document you describe as, “I’ve loosely been through Agenda21 and I’m not going to do it again…” and yet you make the extreme claim, “The Agenda21 ‘vision’ is something I have long opposed because, environmentally speaking, it is and always has been a blunt lie. It’s the kind of stuff that makes good people question what’s really going on behind much of the environmental movement.”
You seem terribly afraid of anyone with an environmental or sustainability agenda but very happy to follow the lead of the fossil fuel dominated agenda.
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@ AA
Gerry Brownlee has a habit of making things up on the fly so I wouldn’t implicitly trust anything he says.
The reason I suspect it’s bullshit is that by Brownlee applying the flawed logic of ‘today rules in yesterdays world’, he is implicitly assuming that the organic growth that would have occurred in his alternative history would not have happened – that is, in the absence of the Harbour Bridge there would not have been significant growth on the Shore.
Anyone who understands Auckland’s geography knows that this supposition is ludicrous given the Shore’s proximity to the city.
The would always be the necessity of an alternative road route, though conceivably the bridge might have been anchored at the Devonport end.
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Sprout,
“You have claimed that Agenda 21 is a threat to us all and blindly rely on someone else’s interpretation.”
No. Read through it if you will. I have done. It has specifically referred to walking and cycling based development, promoting collective public transport development (as a preference) and the planning that goes with it, and restricting sprawl. The promotion of ‘smart growth’ policies as ‘sustainability policy’ is what I call the blunt lie.
I don’t care if you don’t believe me – you will always disagree with critics of the stock-model environmental movement. And yes I do believe in sustainable development, but not development that pretends to be sustainable but is only SCREWING WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES.
Also, I am tired of tolerating your contemptuous, condescending tone. Don’t talk to me anymore unless you can first provide an identifiable name. Truly I am sick of gutless people who hide behind anonymous.
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Gregor W:
I would say of course the harbor bridge accelerated the growth of the north shore. It made that area much more attractive for development.
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@AA
I don’t disagree.
But Browlee’s supposition is that growth would not have occurred that would justify a bridge, which, unless he has the power under to create an alternative history, is merely conjecture (and essentially nonsense when you consider Auckland’s geography).
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If you access the link above, Andrew, my anonymity will disappear entirely as you will not only be rewarded by seeing my image but see examples of good sustainable transport options.
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John Beattie, Director of FiordlandLink Experience (monorail) needs to understand that the World Heritage status of our parks is based on the pristine, unaltered nature of the environment and most tourists want to experience that too and if they don’t, there is always Disneyland.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/fiordland-or-disneyland.html
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“Don’t talk to me anymore unless you can first provide an identifiable name.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Good one, Andrew.
“Don’t talk to me…”
Classic.
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Frog: Because it seems to me to have been a long time and I miss our resident gadfly… when are you going to let Phil.U back on?
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BJ – I am not exactly sure of Phil’s status here. I thought that he was put into auto-moderation, so that he could still post here but all his posts would need to be approved by frog (or another moderator) before being visible. If so, it seems that he doesn’t want to post here under those conditions.
Trevor.
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Doesn’t seem reasonable to me. He was often enough helpful and informative… even if he resembles a pit-bull on occasion… and who else is on that list? I don’t think ANYONE else…
I know he said nasty things about the moderators here… nasty things about me sometimes, and I don’t know anyone he has NOT bitten, but I never held it against him. Just his nature.
Personally I’d like to see his access restored, not restricted… and if I were on auto-moderation I wouldn’t be posting here again either.
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I’m on auto-moderation and live with it, I think I can understand the reasons why it was applied.
I’d stop posting if my posts stopped appearing ( were censored out ).
This blog generally has a high standard of behavior and informative discourse, the moderators can take some credit for that.
I’d like to see phil back as well
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