Biggest offender? How is that different from being the biggest polluter?

Even if China doesn't employ much environmental standards it's pretty telling that they have only recently caught up with the US in terms of absolute figures despite having 4 + times the population.

Plus, it's the US corporations that have moved their factories into places like China where there are lax environmental codes just so they can cut costs and also to ignore worker rights.

Lions eat their young also. Been going on for centuries. The more the climate peddlers talk the more ridiculas this seems.

Nice twist with the last sentence. This is not about worker rights. :doh: Back to what you stated. US is biggest polluter/offender/a-holes...please do not throw that out there without some supporting documentation or links.

Oh yea that's right because pollution has no effect on workers. You're absolutely right there. :doh:

It primarily about the method and the attitude that you have. No offence, yet most responses that I see from both side (one has to be truthful), is one of the old division between the free market and the "bloody commies" that we Europeans have come to represent. And this is what is irking us the most, the fact that you put everything down on the level of economics. Or on the other hand, on the level of religion, with "Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Saviour". I'm not claiming that this is how the whole of the USA act, yet you're not giving us a better picture, are you? The more Skybird focuses on the issue of the rationalistic method, the more he is attacked for being bias, even though he always presents both sides of the argument. We are not blameless ourselves, yet we do see things from the alternative, non-economic point of view, between GDP and what can be defined as "right".

The USA/Europe argument is the same as the human right/Islam arguments. Both sides use quasi rational methods to support their views. And while neither is correct in doing so, Europe is ready to accept different views and try to solve the difference without too much violent conflict, while Islam is still deeply entrenched in the Quran and the Shari'ah and reason forbid that it should be any different.

I'm finished with this. Since this moment, I'm happily waiting for the Singularity. Whatever it may bring us. It will at least stop the constant bickering about who's stone is stonier and solve the issue for us. With us or without us.

Oh and this.

Changing subjects to a coverall statement :hmmm: Come on OTH, you debate better than that! Workers rights was not in question nor in the conversation. Just a blanket OTH statement concerning pollution and the US as the number one polluter.

Pollution has no borders and it doesn't acknowledge class distinctions. However it seems that people lower down the social ladder feel the brunt of the ill effects of pollution.

I do not really understand why clima sceptics are even discussing here, just because of the Kopenhagen conference is taking place. It is very clear that Kopenhagen is not about trying to do as much as possible, not to mention: to do as much as is needed. Kopenhagen is about how to get away with having done as little as possible. Kopenhagen is an alibi event. If I were a member of the sceptics' band, i already would be happy and celebrate.

What, folks in the US do not get the ill affects of pollution? Physical wellness knows no boundries either. Economic or otherwise.

Sure they do but as production is being outsourced into the Far-East the brunt of the pollution problems is felt by Far-Eastern societies.

Why would we be celebrating? We see the whole thing as a waste of time, money, and the progress that could be achieved with those things.

Are you suggesting that just because we have not wasted the amount of time and money that we could have on climate change agendas that we should be happy? A money pit is a money pit, no matter how much money is thrown into it. You might as well say that we should be pleased with spending $5,000 instead of $10,000 on a car insurance policy for a car we do not and may never have.

What you do not see, Sky, is the potential of all that capital. The resources that could have been used and the jobs that the associated industries could have created with that capital are now gone. That portion of economic production has been sucked into a political black hole that will never yield anything beneficial. Rather than alowing those monies to fuel commercial progress, we have chosen to steal and then waste them on political nonsense and the special interests that govern that nonsense.

We can crunch the numbers if you like, but I think that you already know that the money spent on climate whatever-happens-to-be-the-popular-term has not yielded satisfactory results. Emissions reductions in participating countries can't even keep pace with worldwide population growth rates, to say nothing of the increasing emissions of nations in the process of industrialization.

What would you have us do? Would you impose a global standard on emissions? Would you seek, in any way, to control societal and/or economic development? People do not work that way, my friend. The consequences of such actions would be disastrous. There is simply no way to impose a singular will upon a species of social individuals.

Our best bet as developed nations is to set an example that cannot be ignored. We must embrace free minds and free markets, in order to develop the kind of societal and economic prosperity that leads to lower birth rates and more efficient products. Some nations may follow and others may not, but those that do not will quickly find themselves outclassed and faced with civil unrest, and will soon be begging for the aid of free nations. Even then, we must offer them nothing but trade.

Slowly but surely, all nations will come to realize and implement the benefits of free trade, so long as we treat them with dignity and respect. There will be blood and tears in the process, but at least they will be ultimately accomplishing something, unlike what they have heretofore been practicing.

Free market, your celebrated ones, are what has polluted out planet, Lance.

Free market'S economies are the pkayers sending lobbyists to manipulate politicians - that kind of manipoulation you blame politicians for.

It's exactly like I said. You see two devils dancing, but one you call a devil, and the other a saint. God may know why you do that, I do not. I think you are too fixiated on ideology in your thinking, and reject realities over it, wanting to have more of the old recipes that have brought us right to where we are. All you get by that is just this: more power to economic tycoons and monopolists. And both are not about free markets, don't be mistaken about that. capitalism is not driven by the desire to form free markets, but is driven by the desire to prevent them, and deny newcomers equal chances at the starting line. This is what means maximum profit, not to allow as many rivals as possible. Monopolism is the most natural - and only real - attractor of capitalism. Your more romanticised image of it only works in small communities where everybody knows everybody else and feel personally related to him, and every member iof the community sees all the community's propserity and possessions dirctly, so that everybody directly sees how anyone's deeds directly influence these ressouces for the worse or the better. Take away these preconditions and you have the ruling of greed and envy and egoism and monopolism. You cannot avoid it.

Artificial growth, created by artificial interest rates, swawned by the Greed of the International Bankers who own the (the private bank) federal reserve. One could almost say that the worlds population was "grown" with money and cheap energy as its fertilitizer. Billions of consumers were grown to create the machine that destroys them. Irionic no?

Bottom line for me is; is it our fault and should we be held accountable? Not saying that once we know of a problem we shouldnt take responsibility, two different approaches. I do not believe that taxing us while China & India (who are exempt btw because they are a "developing nation") pay nothing. Last time I checked we all are on the same "ride".
Either tax everyone or no one.

One last thought - can you PLEASE tell me one instance where putting a Goverment in charge of anything EVER produced efficient and economical results??? Please......show me, tell me!! :rotfl2:

Mussolini made the trains run on time.:p2:

Actually, he did improve railroad infrastructure significantly compared to what it had been. For that matter, Hitler's takeover and nationalization of previously private industries in Germany eventually led by 1936 to unemployment rates dropping from nearly 30% to less than 10%. He took power in 1933; in the course of three years that's quite an achievement. Germany's overall economy improved under the government's control as well:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tkriseEngl.PNG

Price controls by the government also prevented inflation from stacking up again. And although wages were lowered by about 1/4, taxes were kept extremely low. Yet even so, the German economy blossomed. And when large trade deficits seemed inevitable, Hitler simply moved from all free marketeering to economic self-sufficiency, as the Italians had done before him. Really, Hitler himself was a management genius, and the people he appointed to deal with economic affairs (men like Hjalmar Schacht, Michal Kalecki, Alois von Weissnthal, etc.) were of equal skill and determination.

You guys are getting bogged down with looking for a boogerman but people are people you're not going to change that. So forget blaming one group or another. It's all about simple numbers.

Modern technology has vastly increased the survival rate and longevity of our species to the point that we must start controlling our total numbers or, like any other overpopulated species, we will suffer a really big die off. I think it will happen suddenly and it won't be pretty. War, disease, famine on a global scale.

So if we're to avoid that fate what do you think is the best way to limit total human population and do it fairly?

I actually agree with August. Aside from controlling pollution, we need to control our population as well. The two go hand-in-hand really. I'm moderately in favor of the system China has: one child per household (unless the first one's a female or suffers from some kind of disease/disability), you pay extra taxes if you have more and can , you can only have another child every 3 to 4 years, minorities can be and usually are subject to different rules, twins are acceptable, you get the idea. They've shown it to be astoundingly effective. Discrimination or not, it's a matter of survival in the end. Of the country, of the populace, of our species really. And the planet in the end.

China's system works because it is a single highly regimented nation under a very tight rule. What happens when some countries don't or can't enforce the limits?

While I wouldn't say that China's one child policy works, because of that much females get aborted (or did they change that (one child policy)? reason being what I write a bit later) because males are preferred, and there already is a shortage of women so to speak, it has the advantage that a part of the populace won't be able to find a partner, and thus won't be able to reproduce.

Well - if they can't reproduce - that means fewer people next generation - which is kind of the aim of population control. So that would mean it does work, no?