I will never submit to any progaganda, but you know, if buying a few lightbulbs is going to shut people up and get them off my back, then I'm happy to do it

The problem here amazingly seems to be not so much about actions, but about beliefs. People apparently get awfully upset when you tell them that you don't believe in what they believe in. What people are actually doing seems somehow irrelevant to true believers- atleast from my experience over the last few days with some of these people. It's been quite an eye opener, this all coming right on the heels of this horrible Green PR disaster which sells the message of the dominance of a belief structure over human lives. These people may not be fascists, but some of them have problems, that's pretty plain.

The issue here is people need to be realistically persuaded in order to do something. Not coerced, not lied to, not excluded or ignored, not labeled or propagandised to or terrorised. But talked to and reasoned with on a human level. That's been the problem here for quite a while. People aren't being treated like people, but fools. I think that when you get into this stuff heavily, what the science is actually saying and what people manage to spin from it are two different things. I feel that any alarm someone feels over this issue is their own at this point. It's a choice. I personally mightn't feel alarm, but on the other hand I'm not completely convinced that there is nothing to worry about. In that case I feel that it may be prudent that some actions are taken on climate change, and actually that 10:10 thing looked like it was going to be a pretty cool campaign. I will in no way support them now though. They've totally ****ed themselves up.

There are no regrets options that we should be looking at- things we could be doing that even if AGW turns out to be a huge dud, we will still have created a positive difference. These are the things we should be talking about, imo.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Mon, 4 Oct 2010 20:07.

There's no need to think like that. This film has copped a thrashing from basically all quarters, from all sides of the debate. Linking greens to the actions on display here is unfair. Some people did find it funny, and I might have a problem with that (those people), but mostly the reaction has been one of universal disgust.

just for clarification: i'm talking about the 10:10 video posted earlier, which is source material for this little skit above

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Tue, 5 Oct 2010 02:23.

And finally, some humour.

Quote :

............Moderator; Welcome to the 25th annual global warming debate. The score now stands at 17 wins for the warmists, and 8 for the sceptics, though I must note that the sceptics have won the last 5 in succession. As as a gesture of goodwill, give...n they lost the the last round, first comment goes to the warmist side.


Warmist; CO2 emissions are causing the earth to warm up. The physics of this process are well known, and the result is that the planet’s temperature will continue to accelerate upwards, causing a catastrophe unless we act immediately to curb emissions.

Skeptic; The well known physics of CO2 includes the fact that the warming effect of CO2 is logarithmic, and so subject to the law of diminishing returns. The amount of CO2 required to cause catastrophic warming is many times what we are capable of producing.

Warmist; But the effects of CO2 are tripled or worse by positive feedback from water vapour.

Skeptic; If that were true, the earth would have experienced catastrophic warming multiple times already, and it hasn’t. You are ignoring the negative feedbacks while extrapolating positive feedbacks for which there is no evidence.

Warmist; The evidence of catastrophic change is already upon us, polar bears for example are going extinct.

Skeptic; The polar bear population has tripled in the last decade…

Warmist; Just because their population is increasing doesn’t mean they’re not going extinct. And warming has already caused increases in sea level that are swamping island atolls.

Skeptic; Island atolls float. The only reason they are being swamped is the amount of buildings being constructed on top of them.

Warmist; Sea level rise will only get worse as the warming accelerates, which it is. Consider the historical temperature record in this graph…

Skeptic; That graph? The one based on 7 trees from Siberia with 50% of the weighting from just one of them? I have 51 reconstructions from around the world, each based on dozens of samples or more, that show a completely different picture.

Warmist; Those 51 reconstructions were debunked by this reconstruction which appeared on the front cover of the prestigious IPCC AR4 report.

Skeptic; Isn’t that the one where the researchers replaced part of the reconstruction with thermometer readings instead of tree ring data because the tree rings diverged from the theory? How is it that you can dismiss the last 60 years of tree ring data as being faulty while claiming that the other 1000 years are accurate?

Warmist; You clearly don’t understand science. The temperature record from GISS clearly shows the earth has never been warmer.

Skeptic; Can we see the raw data that went into that temperature record along with how the values were adjusted and the final results arrived at?

Warmist; No.

Skeptic; Why not? What have you to hide?

Warmist; As I said before, you clearly don’t understand science so there is no point showing it to you.

Skeptic; Well we departed from actual scientific discussion when you brought up polar bears extinction…

Warmist; Exactly my point. Studies indicate that people with skeptic viewpoints are lacking in education, are intellectually deficient, or are psychopaths who care little about humanity, so you keep dismissing the graphs and charts on flimsy excuses.

Skeptic; Flimsy excuses? You are proposing that we constrain the world economy, endanger the food supply, and sink the global standard of living to levels that will most certainly result in the death of millions based on data you won’t show me, anecdotal stories about polar bears that upon investigation are completely false, and reports that I dismiss because they are based on ridiculous notions like the worldwide temperature being represented by a single tree in Siberia, and you accuse me of flimsy excuses?

Warmist; Precisely. You are psychologically incapable of evaluating the science objectively due to your defective upbringing and education. There may even be a genetic component to your psychosis, though evidence that skeptic views are increasing amongst the population suggests that these traits are more wide spread than previously thought. In order to safe guard humanity, it may be necessary to take steps to control sceptics in order to prevent them from destroying the rest of us.

Skeptic; Uhm… that sounds like a threat.

Warmist; Being defective in terms of upbringing and intelligence, it is not a surprise that you perceive a threat where none was made.

Skeptic; Fine. Then explain to me what you meant.

Warmist; Well, we’ve invented this little grey box with a red button on top (shows box), and when we press the button (presses button)

Skeptic; (explodes, spattering blood and gore across the stage)

Moderator; Oh my!

Warmist; Having presented a robust scientific explanation of the effects of CO2, backed up by robust studies demonstrating the correlation with accelerating temperatures which will have catastrophic effects on humanity according to a myriad of robust scientific models, which sceptics are psychologically incapable of understanding, and have failed to rebut in this debate, the science is settled, and culling of the human population by those of us who do understand is required in order to save us from ourselves.

Moderator; But…

Warmist; (brandishes little box with button)

Moderator; (hastily) I declare the debate resolved in favour of the warmists. This is a victory for science.

Warmist; (brandishes little box)

Moderator; (gulps) I meant a ROBUST victory for science. There is no further need for debate.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Mon, 4 Oct 2010 17:33.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Mingus - Fables of Faubus

Great! Just what I need right now

Quote from Uke :

Does anyone like heavy music here?
Too heavy for you, you lose.

For full experience turn your volume all the way up.

I like heavy, extreme music, but anything which sounds too cliched just misses the point for me. There needs to be a level of experimentalism going on which really puts you out into unknown, untested waters. Maybe being a musician, I'm kind of just reading off chords to music which I find overly simplistic and therefore I tend to find it boring. Three chord rock drenched even in the heaviest distortion is still three chord rock underneath all the bluster. That was the problem with a lot of punk rock.

Here's an example of the kind of thing I really get into.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9RQLJ8Ucu4

Ironically, this starts off as a kind of three chord thing, but there is a magical moment in this music that still amazes me even today, it's like the music breaks free, becomes alive, becomes almost funny, like some demented country music riffing in hyperspace.

When you're talking about heavy, imagine that this music was created basically in a sealed concrete cube slab, with multiple amplified instruments (some are not really guitars but custom designed instruments, more like amplified harpsichords with custom tunings) at about the loudest possible volume you could imagine or deal with. Yep... heavy.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Sun, 3 Oct 2010 23:23.

Apparently, I’m banned now from posting at Climate Progress.
I left a comment at the site of another guy who was quite rude to me. But that will probably disappear as well. Here it is for posterity-


“Hi Frank.


I just want to understand your reaction to my post on CP. I spelled out plainly that I have been involved in environmental restoration for years and have a consciously low carbon footprint.
Your reaction to my post was that I was an ‘inactivist sock puppet’.
Listen, I have no problem with actions on climate change, so I’m not sure where this came from. I’ve been a CC campaigner/anti nuke campaigner at various times.

Maybe you could list your ‘actions’?

This kind of response to me is exactly representative of the message of the video under discussion, where any deviation from officialdom is greeted with swift retribution, hostility, attack, and silencing. I am banned now from CP apparently so I guess Romm doesn’t really take kindly to this freedom of thought thing either. You know, I am a fairly reasonable guy. You could have engaged me in conversation and persuaded me by whatever it was that you thought I needed to know. I am open minded.
You and others at CP are alienating environmentalists and people who may care about these issues by your approach and that to me is a concern. Concern troll I may be. I agree you all need to sit down calmly and work out what needs to be done here. I suggest better interactions with the people who have problems about the messages being communicated in ‘mainstream’ enviromental media, for a start. You might find that the values being pushed in these communications are not so mainstream and that people are likely going to get upset. And damn right I am upset.

Unfortunately, due to your failure to engage with me on a human level, I’m still upset. And I will be likely pass along my experiences here to anyone who may be interested. If Romm doesn’t want people to connect him to the main message of this campaign than he should bloody well act appropriately!


Stu
“

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Sat, 2 Oct 2010 13:28.

You know, I would actually like to see the Guardian go down the toilet for this one. They are already apparently on shaky legs financially. I hope people can register their disgust in the way The Guardian have supported this campaign.

I already left my last comment on their website. It was fairly short.

Quote :

Oh and, just a small message for the Guardian

**** you!

A comment I posted on the very pro AGW site Climate Progress.

Quote :

Thanks Mr Romm/Mr Mckibben for your distancing from this horrible piece of communication. There is probably nothing more chilling to me than seeing people finding humour in the violent coercion of children into silence. That this film was ever approved along the whole chain of production is just unbelievable to me. I’m glad that even some of the most passionate and outspoken advocates of climate action here can see that this film is just so wrong on so many levels.

Personally, I am a sceptic of some of the pieces of evidence for AGW, and a believer (or no reason not to believe) for other pieces of evidence. I guess most people are not so black and white on this issue as some (the producers of this film?) would like to believe. I have also been involved in environmental restoration for most of my adult life, do not own a car or have a licence, am vegetarian and eat 80% organic food. I denounce rabid consumerism. I would like to know that just because I am sceptical of some of the claims of AGW theory that people around me would secretly like to explode me. I wonder how many trees these people have planted, or whether they drive themselves? Maybe it is me that should have the red button?

Anyway. I breathe some kind of sigh of relief here. This will be hard to let down from your end, a lot of people feel justifiably angry at this, myself included. This is coercive propaganda of an extreme kind. There is no reason at all to support this. The Guardian has just lost any respect I may have once had for it. And I don’t think I’ll be getting involved in any 10:10 campaign.


I hope you can ride this criticism with dignity and restraint. I wish you luck in your future communications with the public.

and

Quote :

PS, I also don’t think that the 10:10 campaigners themselves have properly apologised for this. They ‘imagine’ that most people found this funny and a few found it offensive, while the reverse situation is overwhelmingly in evidence. They need to stop dealing in distortions. This doesn’t sound like an apology to me. This is a ’sorry it didn’t work’ kind of apology.

I'd call it moral bankruptcy confusing itself with moral superiority.

You live and learn...


edit: this is one of the most ****ed up things I've seen in a long time.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Fri, 1 Oct 2010 21:02.

A lovely piece of AGW 'communication'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Fri, 1 Oct 2010 17:08.

You should put a Jazzmaster and a drumstick in his hands and see what happens.

Steve McIntyre has been named one of the '50 most influential people' in the New Statesman's annual survey.


http://www.newstatesman.com/gl ... 9/climate-mcintyre-keeper

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:41.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/ ... and.ice.island/index.html

Here's another news article on this event,

http://www.voanews.com/english ... ing-Debate-100590574.html

The same scientist (Muenchow) is quoted, but here he says-

Quote :

"Even a big piece like this over 50 years is not that significant. It's just the normal rate,"...

..."An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, 'Oh, let's explain this by global warming.' I cannot support that," he said.

On balance, Greenpeace Activist (Melanie Duchin) says:

Quote :

"I think this is more evidence to add to the growing body of knowledge that shows that climate change is happening,"

And the politician (Ed Markey) says:

Quote :

"Scientists have warned us that climate change will result in increased melting of glaciers and polar ice, more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires, and increased drought and flooding,"

Three views- the scientist, the activist, and the politician.

I would probably go with the scientist in this case.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:36.

I'm pretty sure the textures work properly with the latest version of LFS. I think it was 'Z' which changed the texture directory structure slightly but Unseen and I updated our pack to accommodate this.

This and the new Civ game look pretty tempting.

No time for either though for about the next month

Civ has always been a great game, but I don't think I ever enjoyed the sequels as much as the 1st one. It was such an original concept at the time, with tons of depth and replayability. I will never forget when my friend and I reached the 'Space Race' ending. We were so proud of our little civilization.

1991 was a great year for PC games actually. Civ, Lemmings, Eye of the Beholder II... all fantastic.


Civ 1 also had the best intro of all the Civilization games I've played imo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch#! ... hSgUI&feature=related

Here's a strange and amusing case of confirmation bias by the media-

'Polar Bear' washed up on beach in Cornwall turns out to be a cow...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear ... r-washed-up-on-beach.html

Yeah, I don't know. I don't have any kind of handle on the motivations of Bill Gates from a eugenics perspective, I don't feel I can comment on that at all. From your first link it isn't exactly clear cut that Gates is suggesting using vaccines to lower population, it is the authors emphasis which draws that link (he also mentions 'health care' in there, which also obviously doesn't seem to relate specifically to population reduction). Also, the article begins by conflating general population reduction with eugenics, which is really about selective breeding with the assumed aim of improving the gene pool. They are different things. Maybe you could argue that since there is a focus on the developing world(?) that it's deselecting against various races/economic groups. Again, I don't know. I'm just speaking out of ignorance on what these companies may or may not be up to. It would take me a lot of work before I felt I would be able to make any kind of an informed comment here- vaccines are of course another area which is highly politicised. Commenting on your last link though, I would definitely say that any kind of coercive or invisible approach where people are unaware that they are receiving sterilisation drugs is naturally deeply troubling and extremely unethical, and needs to be exposed (if true).

edit: PS, lets get off the eugenics stuff, I shouldn't have bought it up really- it's just that anytime I see Holdren in the media, emotions start to flare

I did watch the TED talk with Gates at the bottom of the first link. He has really signed up for global warming certainty. I do agree with him that we need an energy revolution, and that energy needs to stay cheap so that developing countries aren't harmed. I basically agree with a big R&D push and a diverse approach to energy solutions. Thorium reactors (LFTR) is another nuclear approach which apparently shows a lot of promise over current reactors (being safer/cleaner/cheaper)

http://www.youtube.com/watch#! ... suz-U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... p;feature=player_embedded

http://energyfromthorium.com/2 ... erican-scientist-readers/

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:27.

Imo, Holdren's really quite a nutcase.

However much I might agree that we need to cut back on population growth (voluntarily), Holdren has speculated much further into scenarios of forced abortions, removing children from single mothers, compulsory sterilisation at puperty, etc... he's quite the ideas man! His continuing public adoration for the ideas put forward in the work of his mentor and later colleague Harrison Brown (and vicariously through Brown the work of Charles Galton Darwin, a leading eugenicist of the early 20th C who was very influential on Brown) considerably strengthens the case that Holdren was heavily influenced by the early 20th Century eugenics movement.

Holdren has even written a book called 'Essay's in Honour of Harrison Brown', which focuses on Brown's 'The Challenge of Man's Future', a book which he has continuously praised and cited throughout his career as a primary influence on his own work.

Here's a Brown quote from 'The Challenge of Man's Future'

"Is there anything that can be done to prevent the long-range degeneration of human stock? Unfortunately, at the present time there is little, other than to prevent breeding in persons who present glaring deficiencies clearly dangerous to society and which are known to be of a hereditary nature. Thus we could sterilize or in other ways discourage the mating of the feeble-minded. "

and

"Although there are admittedly numerous individual fluctuations, it does appear that the feeble-minded, the morons, the dull and backward, and the lower-than-average persons in our society are outbreeding the superior ones at the present time."

and

'First, man can discourage unfit persons from breeding. Second, he can encourage breeding by those persons who are judged fit on the basis of physical and mental testing and examinations of the records of their ancestors.'

Nice...


Brown was himself influenced by the work of Charles Galton Darwin- their ideas, and even terminologies are quite similar.

Here's a Galton quote from the eugenics text 'The Next Million Years'.

"...These feeble-minded can be regarded objectively by their superiors, and so might be amenable to the same sort of control as is applicable to domestic animals. This restraint of the breeding of the feeble-minded is important, and must never be neglected.... "

Niiice...

Galton apparently couldn't come up with a better guide than class differences on who should be allowed to breed and who shouldn't. Seems fair I guess...

Quote :

"Much as Darwin favoured positive eugenics, he struggled to find a logically watertight scheme for selecting those who should be encouraged to breed, let alone practicable measures to bring about this end. In terms of practicality, he consistently held to the view that formed the most substantive element in his 1939 Galton Lecture – that there is no ‘better rough and ready way of estimating a man’s value than by the amount he is paid; "

- from 'The Chief Sea Lion among other ... nd the Eugenics Movement'

Thomas G Blaney





I don't often agree with you Racer X NZ, but in this case I think you're right. Being an advocate for population reduction is one thing, but eugenics relates to something else entirely. Both Brown and Galton were members of the International Eugenics Society. That Holdren would write a book praising a man who is a known eugenicist is fairly self evidently damning of Holdren, I would say. The Holdren quotes which can be found in Ecoscience which touch on these matters are more euphemistically phrased than the words of Brown or Galton, but they imply to cover similar ground.

From Ecoscience-

"Involuntary fertility control

...
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births. "

Notice the phrase, 'with official permission'. Scary...


Other readers here might think I'm being unfair and taking quotes out of context. It certainly does seem to be extremely 'out there'. I advise anyone interested to check out a couple of pages which go into the relationship between John Holdren and Harrison Brown (and Ecoscience and The Challenge of Man's Future) in more detail. The majority of the information there has been penned by Holdren and Brown themselves, or is a matter of public record. It's worth reading through everything there. In the end you might not be convinced- my own opinion is that it is atleast naive to suggest that there is no concern. That Holdren is now concentrating on global warming is troubling to me (he kicked off his career on the dangers of Global Cooling). He is obviously a 'desperate situations call for desperate measures' kind of guy and yet he has quite a record of retrospectively ludicrous failed predictions. It's a wonder to me that he still believes his own stuff.

Personally, with history as a guide, I would take anything Holdren says about GW with a rather large dose of salt. The contents of a salt mine ought to do it...


http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren_and_harrison_brown/

some information on Charles Galton Darwin-

http://www.galtoninstitute.org ... NL0412/chief_sea_lion.htm

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:54.

Quote from SamH :

"Global Disruption" and "Global Weirding"

"Irritable Climate Syndrome" ??