Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? 358
coondoggie writes "I suppose it's natural for Washington to try and wrap issues up in a tidy legislative package for bureaucratic purposes (or perhaps other things more nefarious). But one has to wonder if we really need another government-led group, especially when it comes to the climate and all the sometimes controversial information that entails.
But that's what is under way. Today the House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing on the need for a National Climate Service, that could meet the increased demand for climate information, the committee said.
The NCS would provide a single point of contact of information climate forecasts and support for planning and management decisions by federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; and the private sector."
Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously it's a good thing.
At least always better than letting Halliburton, Enron and Total decide what our future looks like.
Yea, why the fuck not? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about NOAA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously it's a good thing. ::facepalm::
At least always better than letting Halliburton, Enron and Total decide what our future looks like.
Yeah, because we know that Greenpeace, PETA, Nancy Pelosi, the DailyKOS/MoveOn crowd, George Soros, Al Gore, and Harry Reid will make reasoned, informed decisions balancing the peoples' and the nations' needs with the demands of the environmental whack-jobs.
Get real.
(Yeah, I know. This will almost certainly get modded down to oblivion by KOSdot mods, probably modded "-1 Troll" but screw it. I've got the karma to burn.)
Strat
Re:no, of course not (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the real question is whether or not there's even any climate change going on in the first place! But if we concede the point that it might be happening, is it man-made? Because if it's natural instead of man-made, that changes everything, right?
No, it doesn't. It would still flood a lot of major cities in the world, disrupt crops and change weather patterns. I know you were being satirical, but this point seems to be missing a lot on the debates. Earth doesn't care if we're heating her skin or not, she'll just be hot for a while, shed the parasites and try again. If we as a race want to survive, we'd better do something about that shedding. If anything, if it turns out we're NOT doing it, we're in for a much harder job of fixing it than if it's us...
Big government entity ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Weather is global (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is something terribly wrong with your reasoning: Halliburton, Enron and Total have only 1 objective: their bottom line. That's not true for greenpeace : they want to inspire people to leave this world in a better state than how they got it. The peoples need and the nations need are what define them; in case of Halliburton : their only thing that define them are their shareholders pocket.
National Weather Service (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with the National Weather Service? Part of NOAA.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Haliburton,Exxon... have TRILLIONS of $ to decide what are future looks like.
2) They will determine that future with the sole intention of immediate gratification of increased (3)profit.
As much as you don't like Greenpeace et all, they do not have the money nor the intentions to contend with these companies.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah, indeed different definitions : greenpeace's definition is altruistic. Halliburtons' is egoistic.
Parent is definition of troll (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument you make is quite dishonest. By conflating activist groups with government leaders, you try to pretend the GP said something that he did not. His point was that history shows that we cannot trust corporate interests to be honest participants in a debate on climate. We cannot trust their data, we cannot trust their motives. They create phony "think tanks" with the sole purpose of obfuscation.
Yes, we need a National Climate Service.
You know what? I trust a democratic (small "D") system. If a multinational corporation pollutes a river, causing cancer deaths and birth defects, we can't vote out the corporate officers and their deep pockets protects them from legal recourse (see: A Civil Action). If I hate the way the government's going, guess what? There's an election coming up. There's always an election coming up. And with the exception of a group Slave States that made a very bad decision in the 1860's, power has transferred peacefully in this system.
You know what's NOT in our Constitution? Capitalism. It's not there, I looked. Not by name, and not by inference. Because capitalism is not the same as "free enterprise" even though people mistakenly think they are synonymous.
But that's a discussion for another day and there are goldfinches on the tree outside my window and my dog wants a walk.
But bluestrat, that was just a shitty troll. Ineffective, wrong-headed and stupid. Plus, you wrapped it all in a troll package with your "I bet I'm gonna get modded down" disclaimer, which is a sure sign that you intended your post to be a troll.
You've got a bit to learn, no matter how long you've been here.
Re:Yes we do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. You're full of hate. The sad part is, I don't think you're trolling - I think you actually believe that stuff.
You "highly doubt" that man-made carbon output is killing this planet? Take a look at this chart: List of Countries Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions [wikipedia.org]
After you look at it, tell me that, for the US alone, 20.4 metric tons of CO2 times 300,000,000 people, isn't having an effect.
Or how about this chart? Greenhouse Gas Emissions Per Capita [wikipedia.org] See how much of an impact deforestation is having?
These are real numbers. All you have is your pseudo-Ayn Randian Libertarian bullshit. We all went through that phase, and once we realized that it had serious flaws, we relegated it to "interesting, but not viable". The reaction to global warming is regulating our lives because so far we've been incapable of doing it ourselves. Capitalism is so concerned with the short-term wealth of its shareholders that it has failed to see the long-term implications of its actions. Burn another rainforest? Bah! We don't live there. Another Alaskan Oil Field? We'll die rich because of it, and screw the rest of ya.
Grow up and look around you. We're doing this. You're part of the problem.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
There is also a whole school of thought (I don't subscribe to it, but it exists, and is as valid as any other) that contends that the Earth is flat.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
I shouldn't feed trolls, but...
is as valid as any other
Earths shape: provable.
Long term effects of social behavior: endlessly debatably- when you come up with a provable theory let me know.
If you can't see why altruism could have negative effects- you need to get out more.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that is false. It is NOT about their shareholder's pocket. If so, then they (and all American corps) would be thinking LONG-TERM. Far too many actions are short-term. They are looking only at their OWN pockets.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't you be moving to Somalia? I hear there's no pesky government or taxes getting in the way of free enterprise there.
Doesn't that sound just as retarded as your statement?
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Environmental issues are a perfect example of government failing to do it's job.
We need to ask "what is the role of government?" Classic liberals felt that the only role of government is to protect the rights of individuals. All rights are property rights (I can elaborate on that if you'd like me to but I'll skip it for brevity).
During the industrial revolution many companies were sued by others who felt that air pollution was a violation of their property rights (not only their land and air but their lungs - ie: bodies - as well). Judges ruled basically that "well, we know these are clear violations but we're going to look the other way because we don't want to hinder economic development" (!!!)
Now, you can blame the industrialists all you want. But if government were doing it's one, single job then we wouldn't have air pollution. The only way a company can survive is to produce goods and services that benefit the lives of others. When people feel that their rights are being violated and the means they've chosen to enforce those rights is not functioning then you get a case of capitalism deteriorating and externalizing costs ... by using the very institution designed for the opposite purpose.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I always find Americans talking about climate change hilarious.
In my country we are taught the ins and outs of climate change in science lessons. This way you learn the theory behind it in the same way and with the same scepticism that you learn to study all scientific theories. Since this has been this way for decades even people in their 30's like myself gained some exposure to climate change ideas in this way.
This is very important since if you just relied on soundbites like "Global Warming" you can dismiss climate change as not happening as your part of the world just had unusually cold weather. I have lost track of home many times I have heard this argument. Unfortunately it is based on an over simplification of climate change: that the temperature is getting hotter everywhere. The truth is the the average global temperature is going up, but that might result in your neck of the woods getting colder.
Like it or not, understanding Climate Change involves understanding some science. In particular it involves an amount of Atmospheric Physics, not one of the friendliest topics to the layman. So with this in mind you can either study the subject for years (or maybe decades) and figure out what is going on or get someone else to study it for you.
If Greenpeace commission an independent study that they have no editorial control over the Oil companies listed above are still going to dismiss it as propaganda if it suggests things like using less of their products. If the Oil companies commission a study that they have no editorial control over people in the Greenpeace camp still will not believe that they had no editorial control.
The idea behind this latest government sponsored group being set up is simple: Try and get a group to come out with some findings that are not immediately rubbished by the side that the disagree with.
This approach has worked in Europe but unfortunately as the studies were all done abroad they are still treated with scepticism in the US. Hopefully this will result in a Government funded, truly impartial report that can be used is impartial evidence in public debate about climate change in the US.
The problem is that the Oil companies have seen the scientific evidence from a previous impartial studies like this and have come to the conclusion that they would rather this report does not come out until they can realign their core business away from Oil. They will therefore mobilise their considerable influence on Capitol Hill in order to keep government out of research into Climate Change.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, because we know that Greenpeace, PETA, Nancy Pelosi, the DailyKOS/MoveOn crowd, George Soros, Al Gore, and Harry Reid will make reasoned, informed decisions balancing the peoples' and the nations' needs with the demands of the environmental whack-jobs.
Nope, they'd be pretty much as bad as leaving it yo the energy companies. Which is why the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment is looking at a National Climate Service rather than leaving it to the partisan groups you mentioned. Whether they'll do a good job or not might be an interesting debate, but saying that one group of people not getting the job would make as bad a job of it as another group of people not getting the job is simply irrelevant.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
N-Korea, USSR, Cuba, ...
Those aren't really altruistic states. In fact, i consider them fascist states.
they demand laws to force others to do so
NO, they demand laws that force people to not harm others(which is in fact a fundamental premise of 'liberty', as opposed to 'libertarianism').
Re:Yea, why the fuck not? (Score:4, Insightful)
which every economist that doesn't have their head so far up their arse they can see sunlight would say you're wrong about.
At the beginning of the depression government intervention did worsen it, because of wrong-headed libertarian/laissez-faire policies combined with economists still stuck on mercantilism. But then along came economists who knew what they were doing and said "the government needs to inject money into the system. Now." and the government did that and things got better. After the great depression we passed numerous banking regulations and other anti-predatory-corporation regulations and everything was fine and Dandy - the boom/bust cycle even stopped and we stayed on a generally upward trend continuously.
until President Raygun [intentional] with the help of congress in the 80s started pulling strings out of those regulations: almost instantly the S&L crisis hits.. then we started back into the boom/bust cycle. then even more regulations were pulled out by the right-wing-dlc-democrat clinton along with the republican congress in 1998 then a great many more under bush 2000-2006 along with other various bad fiscal policies [lets cut the already unreasonably low* taxes of the rich thereby further subsiziding their excess] and WHAAAM massive stock market crash along with a massive banking shock: just like the crash of 1929.
[*
Laffer Curve describes the "maximum utilization" point for tax rates, above that and the tax rate does harm, below that and the tax rate isn't fully utilizing the tax base. Lowest estimate of that t* in the US is 50%, highest 80%. Top flight marginal tax rate for the rich under clinton 36%, under bush tax cuts, 33%. CBO places us clearly on the left side of the curve where tax cuts as a means of economic stimulus are virtually a waste of time. Virtually because cutting them for the bottom wage earners is always effective stimulous, cutting them for the top tier wealthy individuals is ONLY effective when you're on the right side of the Laffer curve]
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
Those aren't really altruistic states. In fact, i consider them fascist states.
Fascist states are states where the government forces private enterprise to act not solely out of profit motive, but demands they behave according to the government's standard of justice. Not just when it is about criminal actions vis-a-vis other people or companies, but always. They have to consider more than the liberty of other people and companies, they, for example, have to consider the co2 impact on global climate.
Communist states go a bit further, and simply run the companies themselves, based solely on justice imperatives, and not, at all, on economic realities.
So what is a fascist state ? An example of a fascist state would be greenpeace making laws about how companies should behave "towards the world". An example of a fascist policy would be the co2 marketplace of Europe.
NO, they demand laws that force people to not harm others(which is in fact a fundamental premise of 'liberty', as opposed to 'libertarianism').
I talked to some European fishermen just last week. They do not seem to agree with your premise that they only "force people not to harm others".
And I'm in the fishermen camp on this one.
In the end, the choice comes down to this : either people die, or animals die (esp. in Africa this is the case). Greenpeace laments the fact that animals have always lost these choices. I do not. Nor does anyone whose ever had his livelihood or life threatened by greenpeace.
And please don't start the gaia "all our fates are connected" crap. It is exactly the reverse. The more large animals are alive, the less humans will be. If a wolf gets sight of a toddler in a "natural environment", whatever happens will lead to either the human's death, or the wolf's, for all reasonable courses of events. Likewise, but more abstract, nature reserves mean less food production (especially, again, in Africa), meaning less population AND THEY ALREADY HAVE OVERPOPULATION (ie food production is insufficient to keep the population alive).
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes because they're too busy believing that it's a "vast liberal conspiracy" since their corporate-fellating information sources feed them that, and since climate science is so complex that things that to a layman seem like counter-evidence actually are evidence.
Like Antarctica getting more snow a year is actually a sign of a warming climate in Antarctica.
Henry Wallace was right. The American fascist does work by polluting the streams of information.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are some examples of the lies and lobbying I am talking about, Senator Inhofe [realclimate.org] who's list of desenting scientists, has as much cedibility as the dicovery institute list of scientists that supposedly reject evolution [discovery.org] but that has not stopped a large number of slashdotter's from waving it around like a magic wand that somehow makes facts dissapear. Then there is the "Heartland institute" run by one Fred Singer [wikipedia.org] who was also prominent in the tabacco industry's anti-science propoganda. Another site that has raised it's ugly head and that can also be related to the anti-science lobby of the tabacco companies is called IceCap [icecap.us], this site specializes in conflating various regions of ice all over the planet and is incapable of ditingushing the North pole from the south pole. It is run by a guy who is on the payroll at the "Science and Public Policy Institute", who are in turn funded by the "Frontiers of Freedom" which is the lobbting brain fart of yet another (ex) US senator [wikipedia.org]. Wallop and Singer are mates from the tabacco industries anti-science cmapaign, the major contributors to the Frontiers of Freedom include Philip Morris and ExxonMobil.
Yep, these anti-science and anti-environment politicians/CEO's have nothing but good intentions, they publish their propoganda to protect you from "environmental whack jobs" and the scientific community who make ludicrous claims such as smoking causes cancer or that a healthy economy and a healthy environment are not mutually exclusive. They have somehow convinced a large chunk of the US that it's not them who are running scams and lying it's the scientific community under the direction of Al Gore who are the liars and scammers.
"Get real."
How about you get real, pull your head out of the sand and drop the alarmist hyperbole, nobody is putting greenpeace in charge of anything but there is a problem and the anti-enviroment/anti-science rhetoric/popoganda coming from the US over the last decade is what has perverted any attempt at a real solution.
"(Yeah, I know. This will almost certainly get modded down to oblivion by KOSdot mods, probably modded "-1 Troll" but screw it. I've got the karma to burn.)"
I have no idea who KOSdot are and I'm not a fan of greenpeace but I agree that your misguided alarmisim should be moderated into oblivion.
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
I always find Americans talking about climate change hilarious.
I find your attitude insulting. You are implying no one in America understands anything about science, which is blatantly not true (the very presence of Americans on slashdot demonstrates otherwise). Certainly some people in the US are idiots who don't understand anything, but can you honestly say that NOBODY in your country falls into the same category?
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Moral equivalency of the day:
Re:Yea, why the fuck not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, as long they incorporate the stovepipes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Obviously it's a good thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
No they are a lobby group that promotes a particular cause, no different to NRA, ACLU or EFF. Greenpeace have not shot anyone but they have rammed a couple of whaling boats and had their own boat bombed and sunk by the French secret service. I for one thank them for their early efforts to stop atmospheric nuclear bomb tests and appreciate their efforts to keep the Japanese whaling fleet out of Australian waters, pity they are now turning their dogmatic eye to nuclear power and have lost many of their founders.
"Greenpeace is selling the use of military force to advance someone's will, outside of the normal democratic process. That's how greenpeace pursues it's self intrest."
That's one of the most idiotic claims I have ever read on the internet, were you aiming for humour?