Paris on fire

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

And what about this?



What rise in global oil prices? I thought it is somewhere down in the $50 per barrel range?

Multiple sources.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I've no idea what you're talking about.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Yeah, but if we are going to counter global warming/climate change, we have to burn less fossil fuels, and the only way to really slow down consumption is to make it more expensive, with taxes. I don't get it, why are the French opposing saving the planet?

Because they are short-sighted, and put personal gain before anything else? Because they have other immediate problems, of course. If the french people lived in the US there already would have been a revolution.

I know it's meant funny and rhethorical, but..
and i know no one here changes his mind..
still..



If we did not have a kind of society or social form we would still live in tribes and kill each other.
It took a long time to get the insight that working together as a team increases your chances of survival, health, and later comfort and wellbeing for a bigger group of people.
This takes longer than "make stick, kill neighbour, eat his cattle".

What do you think was the reason they invented catalyst converters. Catalyst converters cost money. Also, cars without them were taxed higher if i remember correctly.
Do you think those devices are useless? A fraud?
Who told the people they should, or have to, use it? Do you think the immediate reaction was "Great, i do something against pollution"? No. But why don't you ask them now? I guess their minds might have changed, with better education, and seeing that smoke and dust has been reduced.

Or let me put another question. Do you think that there would be as much progress and invention if mankind was not organised in, at least, nations, if not international communities? If anyone would still fight for himself, or his tribe?
No schools, no society-funded universities?

England has built its whole ecomomy aound and within the EU in the last fourty years. So you suddenly take the whole base away, because – nationalism.

Now you can stop using computers, they were not necessary in the 1960ies, so why do we need them now? What do you think happens?

Has any selfish individual, living alone, hating his neighbour, ever done something to improve the overall situation for a people, or society?

Sometimes it needs some influence from 'above', from people who have a glimpse of what really happens, and are not short-sighted only looking at the next day. Climate change denial will make you live better for a year or maybe to the next election, but not for ten years.

[Skybird]

Paying for your living, flat rent, insurrance and such, comes before saving the planet, Catfish. If you cannot make it over the last week in a month, cannot save for your old days, and state raises fees and taxation and talks about people not making it over the month needing to save the planet or paying for forign people in other countries, than resistance is only the natural thing to expect.


Savingtheplanetarism has turned into a gospel nowadays. Its claims must not so much undergo critical review, but must just be believed for the collective mass happening becoming real. Thats where it has turned now into a surrogate religion. People do not want to believe in mere deities anymore, but it seems to bear life and its uncertainties (or to fight boredom) they nevertheless must believe in something, even if it is just anything. Its like that with food as well. Sugar. Self-optimization regarding health. The latest Apple smartphone and watch. Avoid meat, and save the planet (nonsense). Avid sugar, and dont get diabetes (nonsense). Plaster houses to catch even the tiniest bit of warmth inside, and you save the planet (nonsense). E-mobility is ecologically better than gas-saving cars (so far mega-nonsense). Mediterranean diet is healthier than others and extends life (nonsense). Acrylamide kills you if you eat it, by cancer (nonsense). Saving plastic bags in germany will make a difference for plastic in the oceans (nonsense). Jogging in frequent intervals reduces weight (nonsense). The limits of Diesel dust emissions mean that if you overstep them even a bit, they pose a risk to your health (nonsense). There is so much rubbish out there that people blindly believe because somebody said "Scientists have proven". "A new study shows." "Science has revealed that." Nonsense. Most, very very most of these claims come from dilletantees (including professionals!) that abuse methodology or have not learned or forgotten to master it correctly, and who cannot discriminate competent use of statistics from incompetent or corrupt abuse. All the examples I mentioned, have never been proven so far by anyone, and showed to be unprovable so far. But people stare at magical correlations only, and layman prioritize subjective own feelings and beliefs anyway, and so the nonsense turns into dogma that claims it has been causaly proven that this A does B. Nonsense. Correlation coefficients are the most overrated statistical value beside mean values given without variation, excess and other values putting means into relation, that one can think of.


But when you, yourself, cannot pay your bills anymore and do not know what to do for the money is just not enough, and you cant buy your schoolkids the books they need at school, then maybe your forget about all this superstition yourself, too, and start gettign angry about a government that always talks about investing your money into glorious visions, monumental ideas, and foreign places, and that slowly but surely taxes you into your economic ruin and the ruin of your family.


Yes, global warming happens, its quite obvious. But our ways wanting to command it how far it may go, and us wanting to define its conditions of unfolding, have little to do with adapting to it. Mostly it gets abused for the one people executing power over other people, and trying to massively redistrubute welath collected by the economy of the industrialised world to the places that have not developed. This redistribtuion is what dominates climate confernes of the UN by far. And to justify that, nothign works better than talkignWetserners into a massive gult complex. As a German and thus by nature a Nazi suspect, you should know this mechanism all too well.


You cannot have ecology without a materially well-seated economy, and deindustrializing like the greens want it, hardly is the way to go to supply 8 billion people, growing. The always demonised mass production is what keeps these many people afloat. Give up big industry and mass production and intense farming, and see it all going down the drain. Be ready to burn huge heaps of bodies everywhere.

Noise.

Originally Posted by Catfish

Climate change denial will make you live better for a year or maybe to the next election, but not for ten years.

Hehe, I once were like you, and talked in this way myself, too. More than ten years ago. And that was bck then already ten years and more after the apocalypse described to be coming from the soar rain.


Careful with your timing! Do you still count how often the IPCC have claimed already that it is 5 minutes to 12? Thex repeat this claime very years, since - I forgot since how many years. Many years, for certain. It seems the clock is broken, it does not move on.


Or is it that the jester who found it funny to call "Fire!" to scare people, maybe rang the false alarm one time too often and so nobody cares for him anymore when he once again does it while now it is really burning?

[Catfish]

^ You have to admit there's money in it.

I think the 'greens' have turned their "green philosophy" into a veritable business model

If the people buy it... it's economy. Or capitalism, if you so want.
As long as people pay for your product, the price can and will be raised. Self-evident for every company. But when an elected government does it to finance schools and infrastructure, it is "overregulation" or "dictatorship".

A lot of 'greens" have become modern ecofascists, right.
That does not alter facts of a changing climate though.

Did people protest when seat belts became mandatory? Or a second rear view mirror? So expensive. "I can't pay my electricity bill because of that"? Did that stop companies from building and selling it? Or did they make it cheaper? Catalyst converters?
Do we even need so much cars? A 400 hp SUV for every Mom to drive her spoilt brat to the Kindergarten? Why are goods transported via 40-ton-trucks on streets and motorways instead of using the rail system for the heavy stuff? Automobile lobbies anyone?
So much questions.

Apart from that i tend to think that fuel is still much too cheap, if people use it for leaf blowers

[Reece]

catalyst converters

Not that I'm picky but you mean catalytic converter.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Reece

Not that I'm picky but you mean catalytic converter.

But you are picky.





ok thanks

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

What rise in global oil prices? I thought it is somewhere down in the $50 per barrel range?

https://oilprice.com/

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

[blah]
Hehe, I once were like you, and talked in this way myself, too. More than ten years ago. And that was bck then already ten years and more after the apocalypse described to be coming from the soar rain.

Heh where's Reece when you need him. I guess you mean sour, and then again acid?




You know why we do not have acid rain ?
Because of filters and changed conditions of production, forced by government regulation:

"[...] it is that acid rain went away because we curbed our sulfur dioxide emissions. Under the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) Acid Rain Program, Title IV of the Clean Air Act, the government established a cap regulating the amount of sulfur we could emit, in an effort to reduce emissions to 10M tons below 1980 levels.

Companies themselves could decide how to manage under those restrictions, either by switching fuels or developing new processes that emitted less sulfur. They also had the option to buy pollution allowances from other companies whose emissions were below the regulated cap. The cap placed on each company was lowered over time.

As the caps were lowered, the allowances became more and more expensive. This created a strong new market and further enticed companies to switch to less polluting processes and energy sources.

This cap and trade program achieved 100% compliance in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions and was enforced in two phases. Phase I began in 1995 and 445 electricity plants reduced emissions by almost 40% below the required cap. Phase II, which began in 2000, had even more stringent policies.

Overall, the companies that have participated in the program have reduced sulfur dioxide emissions 22% below the mandated levels. [...]"

http://mentalfloss.com/article/18940...ened-acid-rain

https://www.britannica.com/science/acid-rain/History


So the "prophecies" regarding acid rain did not become reality because we did something against it. This obviously has an effect.

Europe and the EU has had its own regulations to cut emissions.
Of course you can again say if we do it and the Chinese don't, the global effect is not good enough and so on. Ok so let's do nothing and have smog and forests like in Beijing?

[August]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

https://oilprice.com/

So in other words I was right.

[Rockstar]

The “yellow vests” have also inspired protests next door in Belgium, where on Friday demonstrators hurled rocks at the prime minister’s office.



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-f...-idUSKCN1NZ1WN

[Catfish]

It begins...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

So in other words I was right.

The price fluctuates daily similar to the stock market but fundamentally yes, I thought you were right.

[Jimbuna]

Will Macron face down or back down to the protestors?

Mr Macron has presented himself as a president brought to power on the back of a grassroots movement, who could heal the rift between voters and leaders, and rebuild trust in democracy among those who felt disillusioned and detached from politics.

Since then, his campaign - like his leadership - has been criticised for being too rigid, too hierarchical, too arrogant and aloof. Now, with has approval ratings falling steeply, he's faced with a real grassroots movement, what will his response be?

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Will Macron face down or back down to the protestors?

Mr Macron has presented himself as a president brought to power on the back of a grassroots movement, who could heal the rift between voters and leaders, and rebuild trust in democracy among those who felt disillusioned and detached from politics.

Since then, his campaign - like his leadership - has been criticised for being too rigid, too hierarchical, too arrogant and aloof. Now, with has approval ratings falling steeply, he's faced with a real grassroots movement, what will his response be?

Why'd you copy & paste couple of lines from an BBC article posted over a week ago?