Comments d41295 has made

plagarism

Clark, you plagarized Scorecard. You cut-and-pasted their entire account into your post, without quote marks and without giving them credit.

Do you think this is moral?On Well, sorta posted 2 years, 5 months ago 24 Responses

0.7 F

It is absolutely absurd to believe that a 0.7 F rise in global temperatures has spawned a 30% rise in cats seeking shelter. This kind of absurd reasoning is a major reason why no one takes the left seriously and why they consider them fruit loops. That includes you, Kate Sheppard -- apparently you learned nothing of science and logic while in college, and are content to spout back anything a press release tells you to. You should be ashamed of yourself and, frankly, embarrased to the hilt.
On I'M IN UR PLANET, GETTIN ALL HOT N BOTHERED posted 2 years, 5 months ago 7 Responses

honesty

Please, let us be honest.

None of you, or me, is willing to sacrifice for global warming.

You all want your high-powered Internet servers and conference plane flights and book tours and ecotourism and air conditioning and all that crap.

None of you is willing to sacrifice anything whatsoever. You just want it to be carbon-free. It will never be.

Stop pretending. Your hypocrisy is disgusting.
 On That ain't good posted 2 years, 6 months ago 6 Responses

boondoggle

This sounds like a boondoggle. What was your carbon expenditure for this trip? Large, I'm sure. No one needs to go to the Galapagos to know that the world is in trouble. You have only made things significantly worse. Thanks for not caring.
On Biz leaders and scientists brainstorm solutions to the freshwater crisis posted 2 years, 6 months ago 2 Responses

cherry-picked

These photos are cherry-picked. As such, they are not representative of anything whatsoever. Only overall statistics can paint an accurate picture.
On Pictures of the world's dirtiest cities posted 2 years, 6 months ago 1 Response

Weenies

Grist: you are all a bunch of scientific weenies. Do any of you have any scientific training at all?? You all seem to have gone to Williams College and majored in history--there is very little reasoned content here, and mostly just ideology. You have probably been protesting since you were eight years old, protesting against what you were told to protest against.

Try thinking for yourselves sometime.On Vote! posted 2 years, 7 months ago 96 Responses

Joke

> The movement has three basic roots: the
> environmental and social justice movements, and
> indigenous cultures' resistance to globalization
> -- all of which are intertwining.

What a joke. By any objective measure, liberals and progressives are getting their clocks cleaned on all of these issues. There is not overwhelming mass movement--on the contrary, the vast majority of the world wants only to become more consumeristic. They all want to live like Americans. Corporations have never been more powerful than they are today. Globalization has never been more interwoven into every aspect of society. Politics has never been more corrupt.

The only person benefiting from Hawken's point of view is Hawken, and that is only in the meager amount of books he will sell. This book will have the same effect as all of his other books, which is to say, no effect at all.
On Paul Hawken on the remaking of the world posted 2 years, 7 months ago 4 Responses

Principled

> Exxon has had ever opportunity to invest it's vast > profits in energy products OTHER than oil and gas > production.

Please try and be at least a little bit honest. If Exxon were not supplying oil and gas to the world, there are plenty of other companies who are more than willing to do so. They exist purely because of YOUR and my and David Robert's desire to live a decadant western lifestyle full of lots of heat, air-conditioning, driving around, and flying. These companies are only satisfying the market. You are just as guilty as anyone, so get off your high horse. Maybe we should hang you instead of hanging Exxon executives. On Crazy quotes from everyone's favorite skeptic posted 2 years, 7 months ago 12 Responses

principled

David Roberts wrote:
> Put aside the question of what it would
> even mean to be a "principled oil and gas
> company."

How about a company that produces and supplies a widely desired product at the market price?

Do you not use oil and gas, David Roberts? Yes, of course you do. So do not admonish Exxon for selling the product you desire and need in order to go about your decadent western life. You're just as guilty as Exxon is.

Please keep your hypocrisy to a minimum, if at all possible.

 On Crazy quotes from everyone's favorite skeptic posted 2 years, 7 months ago 12 Responses

8 bathrooms

Gore's home has 8 bathrooms. Why do you need so many, even if you work at home? Clearly they can get by on one or two.

The "good" Gore does is irrelevant. Now we're supposed to make a moral calculation every time someone burns energy, so see if they're worthy of it? That's ridiculous. 18,000 kWh/mth is just ridiculous -- the average American household uses 12,000 kWh/yr. This is the energy he uses AT HOME, not that he uses to preach on the road. He is an energy hog and living far beyond his (and the planet's) means, and you know it.
On Same as it ever was posted 2 years, 9 months ago 37 Responses

naturally

This creature is rare and mysterious, living out its days in deep water, going about its natural business. Naturally, man's response is to kill it dead.
On New Zealand fishermen nab largest squid in the history of the world posted 2 years, 9 months ago 5 Responses

move

atreyger wrrote:
> Obviously, one has to start somewhere:
> getting a job is great. Having two is
> good too, especially if one is a
> part-time job.

It is very, very clear that for hypothetical west Oakland families affected by asthma, the fastest way for them to change their circumstances is to move. It's by far the fastest way. It will take years and probably decades for them to organize to remove this power plant, and even then their chances of success are slim. Why bang your head against a wall? Save up a couple of thousands of dollars and move someplace where it's nice and start over. Lots of people do it all the time. Are people in west Oakland so incapable that they cannot?
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

green power

GreenEngineer, I did not say I buy renewable energy credits or carbon offsets. I said I buy green power, viz., power produced in a green fashion.On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

Life is short

> Or I can participate in my culture, try
> to make a difference, and accept my
> portion of the responsibility for the
> travesties that we wreak on a daily basis.

Life is short. You can bang your head against the wall if you want, but I'm perfectly willing to pay 10% extra for green power and get on to more important things, like my family and my work.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

insults

GreenEngineer wrote:
> I also suspect that you're 14, or
> thereabouts.  That was the age I was
> when I was haunting the boards
> (dial-up BBS's) with Randroid ideology.

It is very interesting, and telling, how many people here resort to insults and ad hominem attacks when their ideas are challenged. That does not speak well for your own convictions, or for you confidence in them.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

Oakland

GreenEngineer wrote:
> Did you know that the childhood asthma rate
> in West Oakland (the industrial zone) is six
> times the national average?  Six times is not a
> wash.

Then these people should move. If they can't afford to move, they should work two jobs -- three even -- in order to afford to move. It will be to their benefit.

Life isn't fair, is it? It never was. It never will be. Take some initiative.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

Business

> What does your business do?

It deals with words.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

ALL

I am against all government subsidies, if you had bothered to ask. Let each business rise and fall according to the free market. It's the only fair way.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

research

Small farmers should certainly have to pay for research that benefits their business.

No one pays anything to subsidize my business. I see no reason why I should to pay anything to subsidize Tom Philpott's. He should pay his own business expenses.

And I am not a troll, you pathetic liberal. I am someone who disagrees with you. Very telling that you can't accept that at face value, but must find an ulterior motive. Says a lot about your intellectual honesty.On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

Internet

The left likes to make this claim, but the truth is that the Internet would very well have been developed by private and corporate interests as data communications technology advanced in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Clearly, there was enormous monetary interest to do so. We'd be just about where we are now. So get off your high horse.
On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

your cost

Why should I, an American taxpayer, have to subsidize you in order for you to get information on how to run your business. That's rightly your cost of doing business. Incorporate it into your prices if you have to. The government isn't subsidizing my business, and I don't see any reason why it should subsidize yours.On And what you can do about it posted 2 years, 9 months ago 55 Responses

Initiative

Then the new people who are against Measure 37 can plan and run an initiative to overturn it, and it can be voted on like any democratic measure. Until then it is the law. Property owners are making plans and spending money based on this law, and the governor does not have the right to overturn it by fiat. http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/ba ...

Heidi, I am not a member of Oregonians in Action, as a matter of fact. But citizens are still allowed to organize in this country, in case you didn't notice, and that is what Oregonians in Action have done. Typical liberal snobbery.
On Maybe posted 2 years, 9 months ago 5 Responses

hypocrite

Unfortunately, Pelosi's testimony is completely undermined by her hypocritical insistence that she be provided a (large) private jet for her travels.
On Tell it like it is, Nancy posted 2 years, 9 months ago 4 Responses

Re: Are you a Man of Destiny, d41295?

David Roberts, I don't know if I am a man of destiny. Usually I think not. I do know, however, that I am not the callous, insensitive jerk that you are. I don't laugh at people in pain, for example.
On Diapers and a BB gun posted 2 years, 9 months ago 23 Responses

Men of Destiny

That's right, Mr. Roberts, and as you have demonstrated, you are certainly no man of destiny--but rather, a silly, insensitive, callous environmentalist who takes pleasure in other people's pain.

PS: Stop digging already.
On Diapers and a BB gun posted 2 years, 9 months ago 23 Responses

ass

David Roberts, sometimes on this blog you are a complete ass, and this is one of those times. This woman just had the worst episode of her life splashed across the front pages and TV screens all over the country. All of us, even you, have done stupid things for love, but luckily we weren't held up for ridicule by an entire country. This woman has a husband, and children, and their lives are suddenly in shambles. Her career is finished. The other people involved are no doubt in horrors right now as well. Nowak's pain is transparent and obvious, and all you do is take "delight" in it, as if it's something for your putrid amusement. Grow up.
 On Diapers and a BB gun posted 2 years, 9 months ago 23 Responses

nothing new

The IPCC report didn't get more than one day's worth of attention because it didn't really say anything new. So scientists are worried about global warming and attribute some of it to man. So what? They've been saying this for many years now. The new IPCC numbers are just an adjustment of previously reported details. There really isn't anything so new here that people haven't already heard it before. On It just ain't sexy posted 2 years, 9 months ago 16 Responses

Re: rates

Jamesesq73 wrote:
> Your comment that Mr. Philpott is not
> paying your health care cost is
> surprisingly simplistic and not at
> all correct. When obesity rates
> and chronic illness rise across a
> population due to unhealthy food
> choices everyone pays.

No cost is too small for nanny-state liberals like you to use it to force other people to live as you demand. My company pays for some of my health insurance costs, and I pay the rest. You pay precisely $0. So butt out.

> We pay
> when a business or corporation has to raise its' > prices to be able to afford increased premiums.  

This is called the free market. Patronize some other company whose health insurance policies you do agree with. Or grow your own food. Or go hungry--I really don't care.

> We pay when our personal health care premiums go > up for the same reason.  

They watch your own weight, and I will watch mine.  You have no right to tell me how to live or what weight I should maintain. Mind your own damn business.
On There's nothing healthy about the American Dietary Association's addiction to corporate cash. posted 2 years, 10 months ago 60 Responses

vested interests

bookerly wrote:
> People with vested interests in the
> status quo spend money to raise doubts.

Let us also note that this is precisely what Grist is doing, although they're trying to raise fears, not doubts. They have a vested interest and they are spending money (by hosting this blog and paying people to blog on it). They are no different than any other interest group, and as this thread has made crystal clear, they will abuse science in order to present conclusions of dubious quality, for the sake of their agenda.
On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 10 months ago 30 Responses

not answered

Steve Bloom
> A number of the articles are
> relevant, but read these two in particular:

> How do we know that recent CO2 increases
> are due to human activities?

> Attribution of 20th Century climate change
> to CO2

As I suspected -- you throw up a couple of extremely generic references and think your job is done. Hardly. These articles do not answer the question of what percentage of recent decadal warming is anthropogenic, and what is natural. That is the question we are discussing here, if you forgot. (I did not.)

> You'll need to follow the various
> links for the details, and it may be
> helpful to use Google Scholar to
> check for any more recent research.  

No. This kind of slippery talk won't wash here. You made specific assertions. That means, in a place where people care about the truth, that you will provide a specific scientific citation to back up your assertions, including chapter, page number, and quotations of specific sentences. Maybe you can throw off a couple of documents and convince the Greenpeace and Sierra Club people, but we have higher standards here. Much higher.

I await your response.
On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 10 months ago 30 Responses

> 50%

Andrew Dressler wrote:
> What the scientific community has
> concluded is that most (> 50%) of
> the recent warming can be attributed
> to humans.  

Andrew, please provide a citation for this scientific conclusion.

> I suspect that if everyone actually
> looked at the evidence (as described
> in the IPCC report), the number
> would be much higher.  

Andrew, again, please provide a citation for this scientific conclusion. How much "higher?" Please be specific.

> Obviously, some people are "closed books"
> and no amount of data will convince them,
> so it will never be 100%.  I suspect
> it might be 70-80%.

Andrew, please provide specific citations in the scientific literature where these conclusions may be verified.

---

I'd like answers to all four of these questions, please.

If not, then please admit that you are talking completely out of your ass and you have no academic evidence whatsoever for numbers which you are making up as you go along, all for the sake of your "environmental" agenda. And then, for good measure, you can withdraw your assertions until you learn what true knowledge is composed of.

We are waiting.
On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 10 months ago 30 Responses

SOTU transcript

Yes, David Roberts, if only we knew where in the world we might find a SOTU transcript.

Let's see.... Where might be find a transcript???

I have an idea: We might find one by looking in the obvious place.

And LOW AND BEHOLD, lookie here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070123-...On VP snickers at Bush energy proposals posted 2 years, 10 months ago 9 Responses

Oh Please

Give me a break. Cheney was clearly suppressing a laugh that started before your clip starts. You have no idea what it was he was laughing at.
On VP snickers at Bush energy proposals posted 2 years, 10 months ago 9 Responses

trees

Oh please--you really think a few hundred trees are going to make a difference?

Isn't Grist devoted to scientific conclusions?

Trees, and forests, are relatively dark, and soak up heat and warm the surrounding area. Also, trees eventually die and decay, releasing their carbon back to the atmosphere. As scientist Ken Caldeira wrote recently in the New York Times, "...the notion that we can save the planet just by planting trees is a dangerous illusion. To preserve our environment, we must drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions...."

Please, provide us with scientific conclusions and not your do-goodism simplicity.
On Football's biggest day will be carbon neutral posted 2 years, 10 months ago 19 Responses

survey

I will not give my phone number to anyone until they tell me each and every thing they are going to do with it. With whom will you share my number? You don't even bother to say, which worries me. On Tell us what you think of us. posted 2 years, 10 months ago 4 Responses

"time pressed"

Jill, I am as "time pressed" as the next person. It's just that I care enough to do this job myself, instead of paying good money for what is a trivial (and somewhat enjoyable) job.On They flattered my kids -- quid pro quo! posted 2 years, 10 months ago 13 Responses

caps

> He built a sly ideological position
> right in to the quote: technology
> will save us. So, um, forget about
> those carbon caps. Suffice to
> say, that's not working.

Carbon caps are not working either. Have you looked around Europe? No one has the economic stomach for significant GHG cutbacks. The US will not either. Our standard of living is too closely tied to GHG emissions, and no one -- including no one here -- will voluntarily reduce their standard of living by more than a token amount.

Thus, new technologies are the only way.
On Kind of a let down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 7 Responses

true beliefs

If Pombo truly believes that business interests should supercede environmental concerns, why should he not go to work for organizations that promote these values? What is the difference between his (well-held) beliefs and your (well-held) belief? Why do environmentalists think their values should ride herd over business interests? Almost every one of you reading this benefits by the special interest your business gets, and every one of you chooses to live in a way that is a net negative for the environment. So what right do you have to get all high and holy about anything? The incredible wealth that has been generated by the business community in the United States has benefited every single one of us, and I have yet to see even a single case made that it would have been better if the country had remained environmentally uncompromised. The simple fact is that living is an extractive business, and every one of us does damage to the environment just by being here and living a modern lifestyle. Overall, it seems things have been kept in about as much balance as one could expect, without undue emphasis on the environment.

So what's really wrong with what Pombo did?
 On Planning to work for firm that had lobbied him posted 2 years, 10 months ago 4 Responses

CEI

Bailey spent years and years being paid by the CEI (who are partly funded by ExxonMobil), all the while producing skepticism about global warming despite, despite earlier articles and the 2001 IPCC TAR. Then he went to Reason, which is also funded by ExxonMobil. His opinion was bought and paid for. Real journalists do not compromise their integrity by taking money from groups with specific interests.

Yes, this means that David Roberts (or any other blog author here) is not a real journalist, because his income depends on painting an extremist position so that people will give money to Grist. Roberts' conflict of interest is not smaller than was/is Bailey's. That makes it all the more ironic that people like the Weather Channel look to him for content. Roberts is not neutral and never will be. It's sad that the Weather Channel can't be bothered to find journalists who have no conflicts of interest and feel they must rely on conficted writers who benefit by advancing an extremist position.On Good on him posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

Haunted

> We don't know about you, but we're
> still haunted by the "food" we were
> served in school

No, I am hardly "haunted." It occurred many years ago and I have since grown up and learned that my past need not control me.

Get over it already.On Maverick chef Ann Cooper aims to spark a nationwide school-lunch revolution posted 2 years, 10 months ago 20 Responses

Re: Is that the post-colonial free market then?

JMG wrote:
>> Is that the post-colonial free market then?

>  That would be the post-colonial free market I
> expect, where the prior owners of all the
> resources where exterminated or ejected from the > land and their resources by paid government
> agents intent on distorting the market for the
> benefit of the folks coming to settle the "new" > land.

Yes, that free market, exactly. You can become part of it and struggle for success within in, or you can stay back and whine and complain and be run over by more successful men who are reaching for the stars. I think we know which group you are a part of.

>  Or do you mean the free market that
> efficiently externalizes the destruction
> of the planet's thermoregulatory
> capability and the cost of ferrying
> and protecting the oil from the Middle East,
> shifting all these to taxpayers rather than oil > users.

Precisely--the free market which you voluntarily participate in and which you ignore the external costs of when they are in your interest. Are you voluntarily paying $5/gal for gasoline, or voluntarily paying an extra $5K/yr in taxes to account for your share of the external costs? If not, they you are just as much of a fucking hypocrite as the next person, and in what absolutely pure way to you make a living, anyway?

>  Or do you mean the free market that allows a
> tiny handful of oligopolists to capture the
> airwaves for nothing and then, for all intents
> and purposes, print money, while removing the
> public benefit requirements.

You are a weak citizen indeed, because it is your elected representatives who have paved the way for these abuses to occur. Why haven't you run for the legislature and fought like a real man? Prefer to be a whining malcontent who can criticize but never construct? I thought so.

Real men become part of these oligarchys, and learn to benefit from the way the world works, instead of whining about them in the comment sections of little-read blogs.
On Rising tortilla prices in Mexico point to a usual suspect posted 2 years, 10 months ago 23 Responses

Re: Phillip Marlowe...

Tom Philpott wrote:
> ... the narrator of Raymond
> Chandler's detective novels,
> had a great way of responding
> to idiotic remarks: silence.
> Confronted by a feeble
> wisecrack from a would-be
> tough, Marlowe would describe
> his reaction something like
> like this: "I let that one
> hang there. There was nothing
> in it for me."

And once again Tom Philpott has contributed absolutely nothing whatsoever to the substance of the debate at hand. On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Re: Let's all calm down

> Re: Let's all calm down

And, we are not uncalm. We might have passionate beliefs, but that does not mean we need to calm down. If anything, the majority of the people here need to calm up.On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Glittering Generalities

jjwfmme, I am still waiting for your list of advances, technological and otherwise, that have come not via the free market, but via government planning.

I can straight away think of only one: nuclear weapons. Do you really want to hang your hat on that?

Let's see your list. Otherwise we will assume the superiority of the free market.On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

free market

A free market is always better than a government subsidy. Always. Manipulation of the free market should be treated aggressively. But the market must still be as free as possible. Almost everything good in our lives has come via the free market. Everything.On Rising tortilla prices in Mexico point to a usual suspect posted 2 years, 10 months ago 23 Responses

Re: Don't feed the trolls

Tom Philpott wrote:
> There's nothing in it for you.

It is sad that you think the readers of this blog must be in such complete lockstep that any competing ideas can only be from a "troll."

What exactly do you find so threatening? On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Re: Fiction does not prove...

jjwfmme wrote:
> I agree that civilization is
> resilient--people pull through
> in a pinch, which has been a
> historical strength of our
> democracy--but it can also become complacent.
> Considering the way our elected officials and
> corporate citizens have acted regarding certain
> issues, like climate change, I think David can be > excused for writing an occasional jeremiad.

Well, some people become complacent. Maybe even most of them. But there have always been individuals with intelligence and daring and vision who reject complacency and who build the future that does not yet exist. They pull the rest of us into the future. It has been this way forever. Some elected officials are certainly mediocre--most of them, even. But the leaders come along at regular intervals to also pull us into the future: Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy. And if the elected officials don't lead, the brilliant men and women who create our new sciences and technologies make them irrelevant and and civilization adopts their new and better ideas. It will be the same with climate change. The world will warm a couple of degrees, which will open up huge new swaths of livable territory in the US, Canada, and Russia. Some people will become refugees, sure. They will be tiny minorities. As climate science is better understood and more readily accepted (and look at how much that acceptance has changed merely since 2000, or, for that matter, since 2004) and as its signs become ever more prominent, society and governments will devote more and more resources to solving the problem. Bright people will invent new solutions, and they will become rich precisely because they are better solutions and because people will want them. When in history have humans ever laid down in the face of a problem? Never. We have always and continuously developed better ways to feed ourselves, to defend ourselves, to house ourselves, and to take what we're given and mold and master it into solutions. There is nothing special about where we're at now. Nothing.On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Re: Faith-based libertarianism

jjwfmme wrote:
> Shorter d41295: Stop worrying and take your Soma.

Clearly you have failed to understand anything that I've written. That or you have purposely misinterpreted me.

See my message above, and then tell me where I said to "stop worrying."On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Re: Baloney baloney

GreenEngineer wrote:
> Yes, things are better now (on a material level, > if you're an American)

No--things are better for practically everyone on the planet.

> The point is, civilization is much more fragile > than most people give it credit for.  There is
> no guarantee that tomorrow will look like today, > despite our (very natural) human tendency to
> assume it will, because for most of history, it > did.

In fact, you have it exactly backwards. Tomorrow has ALWAYS looked like today--for every day in history, except maybe the day a comet hit 65M years ago. There have been no great leaps backwards.

> The further we climb up the technological curve, > the higher we can reach, but the more precarious > our position becomes.

What is the evidence for this? There is none that I can see. Technology makes our lives more stable and LESS precarious. Do you have any doubts about where your food is going to come from tomorrow? Your heat? Your medical help? Your transportation? Sure, you might pay a few more cents per gallon--maybe even a few more dollars per gallon--but life has never been free, has it? And if gas gets too expensive, the free market will ensure that alternative methods of transportation will come into being to allow us to go as never before.

Stop painting such a negative picture and drop the apocalyptic fetish. I don't even think you believe it. On Best movie of the year, hands down posted 2 years, 10 months ago 81 Responses

Re: Charcoal Fertilizer

GliderGuider wrote:
> My major concern is in the imminent convergence
> of Climate Change, Peak Oil and Food Scarcity.

This is what I mean when I referred to climate extremism above. Some on the left seem to have an obsession with apocalyptic thinking, even, it seems, a wish that it will happen. (The blog Past Peak is especially guilty of this.)

Of course, people have been predicting the apocalypse for millenia, and yet life has only gotten better and better for more and more people. I don't see any real reason why that trend should not continue. That's not to say it will be easy. But life has never been easy. Climate change could well add a couple-to-three degrees to the planet, which will benefit some areas and harm some others. We will develop alternative sources of energy as oil peaks and then declines, the inevitable result of free market forces. Science and technology will continue to provide enough food for the masses -- for so many of us the major problem is now a food surplus -- and we will continue to overcome the major food problems on the planet, which lie in distribution and not quantity.

There is absolutely no justification for apocalyptic thinking, and worse, it is anathema to the spirit which has driven the best of mankind to find solutions to its problems. But some people like to predict an apocalypse. It justifies their world views and, I think, their worries about spiritual impotence. But some people have always had what it takes to press ahead and make progress, and that spirit is as alive today as it has ever been.
On A review of Joe Romm's new book posted 2 years, 10 months ago 34 Responses

Lipow

Lipow, you can start by showing me where in the consensus climate change science there is evidence for a sea level rise of "20 feet." The sea level rise predicted by the IPCC for 2100 is less than one meter, and possibly as low as 9 cm. On A review of Joe Romm's new book posted 2 years, 10 months ago 34 Responses

Romm

I should add that I also see Grist and this blog as frequent extremists, one whose financial existence is tied up with its extremism, although I do not view Grist as extremely as I do Romm. On A review of Joe Romm's new book posted 2 years, 10 months ago 34 Responses

Re: money

jjwfmme: The fact that an argument is "tired" is not proof that it is not true.

And the British papers and magazines are well known for their hyping of the science stories they cover, especially global warming.

The IPCC is not extremist.

Face it: the extremist position advocated for here by Roberts might be strongly influenced by their bottom line. They have a direct financial stake in expressing the most extreme view possible. If you criticize the right for their financial entanglements, you have to criticize the left as well.

That stresses the importance of true journalists like Andrew Revkin, who can be objective in a way that David Roberts cannot.
 On The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 11 months ago 39 Responses