Don’t know about the others here but I will work with anyone who will work with me. Not to get me wrong, I am an Atheist and I know that I don’t make it particularly easy, but as long as there is an acceptance of science where science is appropriate I do not care about the religion of my comrade in arms.

My MOST negative perceptions of evangelicals are of the “creationist” variety and I am well aware that milder variants exist. It is simply that I have encountered way too many heavily armed creationists in my travels. Might be a personal coincidence sort of thing, but the USA has more than its share of people who abandoned thinking when they adopted religion.

I also know a lot of scientists who know that isn’t necessary.

I try to take individuals on their merits. Mixed results but I DO try

respectfully
BJ

The wider economic impact of a poisoned environment and unrestrained carnage on our roads are the real luxuries the world can’t afford.

Too many of the anti-environmental protection arguments reek of the same logic that people used to use to justify intoxicated driving (I drive better when I’ve had a few drinks because I’m more relaxed) and not wearing seatbelts (because it’s safer to be thrown clear rather than being trapped and burnt/drowned/strangled). Those arguments are true in a minority of cases but minority cases should never be the basis for rule making.

The rules on drunk driving and seatbelts are founded on a substantial body of realworld research and straight forward laws of chemistry and physics. The most successful environmental laws have that same grounding.

Most importantly of all, the most successful techniques cost only a fraction of what opponents claimed they would cost. Proper cost/benefit analysis has been a crucial part of bringing down the road toll because that highlights what the longterm intergenerational costs of the business-as-usual approach is and that can be compared with the sort-term cost of taking effective countermeasures.

P.S Greenfly, thanks for your email a while back, really impressed with what you and your friends are doing, I forwarded it to some friends who are also quite interested in what you are up to.

Link please….

Which is a polite way of saying “I think this is something someone made up”

I don’t know who, but it doesn’t match reality in any respect. Consider the word choice alone…. no lobbyist no matter how incompetent, would be caught dead saying anything of the sort.

BJ

The AUTOMATED wordpress filters are remarkably opaque to scrutiny by any of us. I have had posts with 10 links passed through and posts with only one link blocked. The word screens tend towards American usage problems and most of us have simply accepted that they are POM dependent. That’s what we used to call it at JPL anyhow…. Phase Of Moon dependent. What I think might be going on is that behind the scenes it is affected by things that happen to wordpress installations elsewhere. Someone launches an attack on some hapless blog somewhere and blogs everywhere are “sensitized” to the form of that attack. Maybe…. I reserve the right to be wrong.

What I insist on is that it is NOT personal. It hits all of us. I usually get it for links when I am trying to provide information. I can’t guess what triggers the thing in any given post and neither can Frog. I might guess better than Frog sometimes because I “get” the American forms… but it isn’t worthwhile.

Kindly refrain from insulting us because the filter snagged some post… and notice that the insults are NOT snagged. There is very very little that gets “censored” around here.

BJ

did I miss a post on this website explaining how the key piece of evidence in Gore’s Oscar winner - the historical correlation between temperature and CO2 levels - has been debunked?

You did miss it. Tell me what makes you say this and I will explain. I am serious. The SCIENCE is not at all easy and there are a lot of “very simple” and “very easy” and “very obvious” answers that are very wrong.

Most often there is a problem with timescales.

Almost invariably there is a problem in understanding that the CO2 isn’t the only factor in the models.

Sometimes there is an appeal to coincidence.

Doesn’t matter really. I will try to find time to answer any question you ask.

Remember too, that the basic principle, that use of the commons has to have a price associated with it, isn’t just about “climate change”. It applies to clean water, particulates, toxic chemicals and all the rest. THAT principle is quite solid, and the “tragedy of the commons” is quite real.

respectfully
BJ

The other tens on the list all make sense. Some molecular scientists have argued that people in an economy behave like molecules in a fluid or gas - more random than rational. Thus the impact of the tax system can be modelled in the same way that mixing colour into a paint base can be modelled. That modelling shows that the most even and consistent distribution of wealth occurs when the tax rate is flat, and the tax revenue is paid in equal proportions to every taxpayer.

The tens don’t quite acheive that because too high a proportion of the tax revenue is still being paid to middle class civil servants. But the 10k threshold and 10k child payment may compensate for that.

From the answers the politicians gave I presume the question was placed in some context juring the phone interview. If they were actually asked “which would you prefer to listen to - Dub, hip hop or techno?” then we got six honest, non-judgemental answers.

Perhaps in the interest of providing balance, they could have asked
a) bluegrass, country, or western
b) heavy metal, R&B, soul
c) The wiggles, Bananas in Pajamas, Barney
Including the original question, that covers most age groups, regions of the country, and genuine musical genres.

You might remember the vitriol that was extended to Lomborg when he published The Skeptical Environmentalist. Doubtless there were errors in the book but the thrust of it, compiled using official figures, remains. The point is, you’ll never hear any of the vast amount of positive environmental news from Greenpeace or the Green Party. It’s not in their interests. It’s like garlic to a vampire. All you’ll get from them is the endless litany intended to garner money and votes. Nor does “World Not Ending” sell many newspapers.
Now, whilst greens were relentless in exposing every little error in that book, where were they, for example, when the Hockeystick was being investigated? They were on the side of lies, deceit and obfuscation. It was like pulling teeth. They had absolutely no interest in the scientific truth.
And did I miss a post on this website explaining how the key piece of evidence in Gore’s Oscar winner - the historical correlation between temperature and CO2 levels - has been debunked? For people who claim to be so interested in the subject, you’d think it would be a major headline. The truth is only inconvenient for those with an agenda…

Okay, farmers.

- “A farmer running goats in a degraded African landscape, in desperate need of every drop of goat milk to keep her family alive, isn’t going to be the one to make the changes needed to reafforest the landscape to escape the inevitable collapse the environment there faces.”

Clearly so. Environmentalism is a luxury good. Just because you and I advocate high environmental standards isn’t because we are morally superior to the African farmer, it is simply because we are rich.

- “It will take someone more removed from the immediate situation.”

To do what, exactly?

The answer to the humanitarian and environmental disaster is to end poverty, and the only proven cure for poverty is a property rights, free market and free trade. Yet, funnily enough, the only solutions advocated by leeching NGOs is - well - more money for NGOs.

- “While this isn’t Africa and we aren’t at the ‘end game’ involving goats, there are parallels with our own farmers.”

Yes. They’re both called “farmers.”