Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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GasBandit
Staff member
CO2 has a "self cancelling" effect when it comes to climate change. But hey, a witch hunt's a witch hunt, right? Gotta make people think they're doing something and fighting for the planet.
My stance on Global Warming is more or less to the effect, I don't really know--or care--if its real or not, but I'm not really opposed to measures that support cleaner fuels, less pollutants and general all around clean efficiency. Living (and breathing) some of that stuff for a few years has somewhat changed my perspective.
GasBandit
Staff member
As long as we're talking about actual pollutants, like mercury or sulphur, I'm right there with you. CO2, however, has been a false scapegoat for years for watermelon environmentalists using eco-panic to try to hobble productivity.
GasBandit
Staff member
Oh no, the gospel of climate change calls CO2 the primary cause of the greenhouse effect and the warming of the planet.[DOUBLEPOST=1427939336,1427939190][/DOUBLEPOST]Senator Robert Menendez has become the first US Senator since 2007 to be indicted on corruption charges.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...obert-menendez-indicted-on-corruption-charges
14 counts involving bribery, fraud and conspiracy.
Senator Menendez, despite being a senior Democrat, has been a vocal opponent of both the Iran nuke deal and the normalization of relations with Cuba... and some are smelling politics behind all this.
Huh. I always thought it was methane.
Well, at least that's more substantial than a smashed finger.
--Patrick
http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
NASA does sort of list CO2 as the most significant, but not the only gas. Also included in their list is water.
NASA does sort of list CO2 as the most significant, but not the only gas. Also included in their list is water.
GasBandit
Staff member
But we're not being blackmailed/extorted into passing water vapor reduction legislation. They didn't try to make us buy water vapor credits. They don't force car manufacturers to meet certain arbitrary water vapor averages. Industries aren't being threatened into installing water vapor filters on their exhausts.
Carbon dioxide, on the other hand...
If I'm interpreting it correctly, CO2 does not self cancel but rather, the same emissions as a whole (the smoke from burning coal for instance) diminish the effect of CO2. The abstract of the original paper is really obtuse and I don't understand anything though (it's also very early in the morning), I'll try to access the whole paper at work later.
In any case: guys, a single paper does not a new scientific status quo make.
EDIT: The article from the CATO institute doesn't say that CO2 is irrelevant, only that its effect has been overestimated.
Oh, also, I do agree that the focus of CO2 has taken attention away from stuff that is much more polluting (because it is directly toxic, instead of working indirectly through global warming)
In any case: guys, a single paper does not a new scientific status quo make.
EDIT: The article from the CATO institute doesn't say that CO2 is irrelevant, only that its effect has been overestimated.
Oh, also, I do agree that the focus of CO2 has taken attention away from stuff that is much more polluting (because it is directly toxic, instead of working indirectly through global warming)
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GasBandit
Staff member
And neither does a consensus plastered in dollar bills, but hey.
"No amount of experimentation can prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Albert Einstein
Sorry, I didn't mean status quo as in what's acknowledged by scientists. I should have said a new state of scientific knowledge or something. That phrase by Einstein is true BUT only works for some groundbreaking experiments really, stuff that hasn't been looked at before. In most other cases, a paper can point in a new direction. Very strongly, if you want, but still the direction needs to be explored and confirmed before you can say the previous knowledge has been amended.
Oh, please don't lump me in with Gas on this. I just wanted to make the water vapour joke.
GasBandit
Staff member
Welp, we've officially pulled a Chamberlain with Iran. We lift most of our sanctions, they "promise" no nukes for 10 years. It's grim, but expected. As former UN Ambassador John Bolton pointed out, the only real way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons is through military force, and nobody has the will to do that. Everything else is just fantasy at worst or playing for time at best. Unless the Israelis once again decide to do what they must to ensure their survival, and decide forgiveness is easier than permission.
A regular military attack of theirs on Iran would destroy the region, yes, worse than is already the case, and incite Al Qaeda, IS, fatah and pretty mjuch every other muslim organisation to band together against them. If Israel really started it, the US would certainly still support them with some grumbling, but I wouldn't bet a cent on the EU's response - plenty of pro-Palestine countries here, and some antisemitic ones as well, unfortunately. German guilt might still tip the balance pro Israel, but I'd wager on very mixed reactions if anything. A nuclear attack by Israel would probably be even worse. Either could spark the actual-honest-to-God third world war. I'm not a religious perosn, but I pray that doesn't happen. I'd sooner give Iran the A-bomb then have one used against them.
GasBandit
Staff member
What people commonly think of as nukes wouldn't be particularly useful against Iran in this situation anyway. Their enrichment centers (with something like 19000 centrifuges) are deep, deep underground. They'd probably need a low grade nuclear bunker buster (which we do have, but the left shrieks like whores on judgement day when the topic comes up) to penetrate deep enough to get them. Because the explosion would be contained underground, there'd not be all that much fallout to worry about, but the optics of "using a nuke on Iran" is one the short attention spanners and the underinformed will latch onto.
I think you underestimate the European leftist and pacifist lean on this sort of thing. Any fallout is too much to worry about.
Heck, in Belgium there's currently a bit of a stink over replacing our 1980s-era F16s with something newer. The army wants F35s. They were probably goign to get them, until a document leaked which proved their main reason for this choice was that the much cheaper alternatives couldn't drop nucelar bombs. Not just the left, the middle, right, far right, extreme left and pretty much anyone involved in politics in any way instantly abandoned the very idea of possibly being these perhaps who knows. The word "atomic" is really one of the biggest "nopes" in European politics. And this, mind you, coming from someone who's in favor of nuclear power (i'm pretty much alone in this thought in my whole country, it seems).
Heck, in Belgium there's currently a bit of a stink over replacing our 1980s-era F16s with something newer. The army wants F35s. They were probably goign to get them, until a document leaked which proved their main reason for this choice was that the much cheaper alternatives couldn't drop nucelar bombs. Not just the left, the middle, right, far right, extreme left and pretty much anyone involved in politics in any way instantly abandoned the very idea of possibly being these perhaps who knows. The word "atomic" is really one of the biggest "nopes" in European politics. And this, mind you, coming from someone who's in favor of nuclear power (i'm pretty much alone in this thought in my whole country, it seems).
GasBandit
Staff member
Just a small terminology quibble... the term "atom bomb" or "atomic bomb" or A-bomb has been obsolete for decades. Those terms pertain mainly to old simple fission bombs like were used in WWII. The term for what we're discussing here (fusion bombs) is thermonuclear, or nuclear for short. Calling a nuclear weapon an "a-bomb" is like calling a Ferrari a go-kart.
Necronic
Staff member
Uhm yeah. I don't think that guy understands that research at all. I don't think he even understands the difference between CO2 and Aerosols, which...look if you don't know the difference between those two then you really don't get to have a view on this. And I do know the difference between those, and I have a degree in chemistry, and even I have a hard time understanding that abstract. I don't for a second buy the interpretations given here. Not saying they are wrong, but they could have just been picked out of a hat for all I know, because it seems like the people interpreting it have absolutely zero business doing so.
And I find it funny how hard global warming deniers will reach to accept the most tenuous journal article in support of their position, yet recoil in disgust at the MASSIVE number of journal articles that support global warming.
And I find it funny how hard global warming deniers will reach to accept the most tenuous journal article in support of their position, yet recoil in disgust at the MASSIVE number of journal articles that support global warming.
Yes, and now you go and think about how much modern media care about such distinctions.
GasBandit
Staff member
The media here, at least, has been getting it right. Nobody's said A-bomb since the 70s, stateside. That's why it stuck out to me so oddly when you use it. The media here stopped saying A-bomb as soon as there was an H-bomb, because it's scarier.
Then you pretty much accept that one will be used on Israel. It won't stay contained, it will get to someone that is willing to use it, "For Allah!"
GasBandit
Staff member
This.
Iran having a nuke means Israel gets nuked. Possibly the United States, too, seeing as how our southern border is easily crossed by armed smugglers with brown skin as it is.
GasBandit
Staff member
There's a marked difference between Pakistan and Iran. Not the least of which is Iran has already tried the mexican route to commit terrorism on US soil once already. Also, Pakistan is predominantly Sunni (like Iraq) where Iran is predominantly Shia. Iran is more prosperous than Pakistan. Iran is firmly a theocracy while the debate still continues in Pakistan as to whether it should be theocratic or secular, and to what degree. And that isn't even getting into the weeds with the signs that Iran's leadership sometimes seems more like a doomsday cult than a governing body, what with the prophesy of world-ending cataclysm paving the way for the 12th Imam (a Shiite messianic figure).[DOUBLEPOST=1428014925,1428014858][/DOUBLEPOST]
Oh no, the white ones get stopped and arrested. The brown ones are protected, given water, food, lawyers, health care and soon enough, probably voting rights.
I wonder if the opposite is true? That is, if it's the brown people who get turned away at our northern border?
--Patrick
147 people dead in university campus shooting, nobody cares
Because it's in Kenya, so they're poor, and black, and really, who has time for Africans shooting one another, right? LOL, let's talk about the Kardashians!
...ok, I'm exaggerating, but it's still damning that this sort of thing is going on with Al-Shabaab deliberately targeting christians and nobody seems to care because, well, no oil over there, I guess, it's not the Middle East or the West so fuck'm.
...ok, I'm exaggerating, but it's still damning that this sort of thing is going on with Al-Shabaab deliberately targeting christians and nobody seems to care because, well, no oil over there, I guess, it's not the Middle East or the West so fuck'm.
It got a mention in the crawl across the bottom of the screen this morning while they were showcasing clothes and jewelry made out of Peeps.
--Patrick
Yeah, it was on the 11 o'clock news last night. Tragic, a waste of a bunch of young people reaching for a better future for themselves and their nation.
I thought it was Boko Haram at first, I hadn't heard much about Al-Shabaab.
Head about it as the news alerts came across my phone yesterday at work. Read about it deeper after I got of work yesterday.
Yeah, news was crawling with it here.
Here's an interesting statistic (taken from a thread I saw on Gaf.), there have been more police killings in the US in March than in the UK in the last 100 years. That's fucking crazy.
http://www.killedbypolice.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom
Here's an interesting statistic (taken from a thread I saw on Gaf.), there have been more police killings in the US in March than in the UK in the last 100 years. That's fucking crazy.
http://www.killedbypolice.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom