I don't think the US is really that divided on this issue or indeed other issues. In the end what matters is what happens on the concrete level. The US is very much into their religion of consumption and producing of garbage and pollution.

Also, plenty of imperialist stuff in the Danish text.

Good point!

http://antinuclearinfo.files.wordpre...mic-bomb-l.jpg




Exactly, that's something that always comes to mind for me; how many GW believers will actually take proactive steps in their own lives to "reduce GH gasses"? Some do, but most just want govts to mandate changes for everyone. I tell ya, if GW is man-made and real (and despite some misguided people who think I am prejudiced and biased, I do not claim it is or is not real), and if we have to take steps to reverse it, they won't be easy fixes. How many people here are willing to limit themselves to 1 day on the Internet a week to save electricty?

Yeah because you'd certainly know better sitting in your little ice palace up there in Finland than Steve would living smack dab in the middle of the US. :roll:

That's right because living in a country makes a person expert in everything concerning said country. :doh:

Here is the thing, people have not been forced to change. Car manufactures have been forced to change as well as factories. Cars of 20 years ago were belching CO2 like no tomorrow. The manufactures were advised that CO2 belching cars can not happen anymore. So the air pump/catalytic convertor were invented. Great, reduced emissions. But that was not good enough. Big government wanted more reduction. Computers (ROM) are jammed under the dash. MAF, MAP, coolent, throttle position sensors are created reducing emissions even further. The infamouse 'check engine' light! Then to get to the ultimate 14:1 air/fuel mixture, that magic number, carbs were tossed and fuel injection inserted. Now direct injection is used...20% more efficent and cleaner. The cars today are just about spitting only water out of the tailpipe. Yet we still warm!?! What gives? So, some only changed by purchasing a better more efficient car. In reality, all new cars are more efficient the cars of yester-year. We therefore are not told to change a thing. We are only beaten into submission over an ever warming climate and told we are the cause yet the cars and factories are much more efficient. We are ASKED to recycle but never forced. Do we continue on that path without reduction and or a temp that is staying constant? Does anyone really think the warming would stop if every car on the road was kept from running?

Maybe not the expert but certainly has a hand up. Then again, if you ever been to Walmart here in the states you would...well never mind.

You would be to remember that there are other people in the world than the USA and/or Europe. There are billions in Asia and they are getting more consumer good by the day. Goods that need to be made. Resources which have to be mined and smelter. It is the whole process which emits, not just the cars, although transportation plays an important part in human CO2 emissions.

I have the answer for you free-market loving American. Technological singularity. Then we let it decide what to do. Hopefully it will understand that reason is more than 2+2=4 (if that is even true in the first place). Otherwise, it will do what we will have to do to ourselves in due time. Malthus is rolling in his grave, laughing at the idiots who did not take him seriously.

Something extra to sink you mind into.

Well, us fun loving free market American purchase cars from foreign manufactures that are required to meet the emission requirements set by the US government. Others need to follow suit. Why do I get the feeling the GW is being dropped in the USA lap soley as the cause for the problem? Why do I get the feeling in the very thread other around the globe believe this is the fault of the USA?

If you misunderstood, I apologise. It was newer my intention to claim that it is America's fault. It is primarily Europe's for it is Europe that developed that train of though that lead to industrialisation. Yet the difference between Europe and the USA, is that Europe and its people are more willing to accept change, even if that borders on self-destruction than remain in one single spot and newer move away.

Now, this was again an over-generalisation for which I apologise. Yet the argument, when reduced to individuals and maybe even society proper is the same. Who's populace is most against climate change and the actions that have been taken to fight it (although I agree that they are far from being the most efficient ones)? The anglo-saxons and their former American colonies. Free-market. I am not saying that you are the only ones. Far from it. You're just the most entrenched ones.

No, it was only your post that spurned the thought that this thread leans towards the US as the sole provider of this GW issue. I was not suggesting you did. :up: May I inquire as to why you say the US is the most entrenched?

And as always, I prodvide the same answer. If there is very little state power to seek, who would waste their time lobbying? :DL

I have never advocated an unregulated market, and you know that, Sky. I am not an anarchist or an anarcho-capitalist, and I've said on numerous occassions that I think a reasonable tax on industrial effluents would be in order, not to mention stiff state penalties for fraud.

Until you produce a third form of government that doesn't involve handing fiat power over to people and trusting them to do what is right, or transforming basic human nature, I'll stick with minimally-regulated capitalism.

I neither attributed a rule to science nor defamed it in any way that was not already apparent. Given your prediliction for questioning spoon-fed state propaganda, I would have thought that you have arrived at the same conclusions I have.

You know as well as I do that scientists are people, Sky. They do not magically transcend human nature in the process of obtaining their degree. As a student of psychology, no matter what school you follow, you should know that.


You're thinking backwards, my friend.

What you should be asking yourself is why pharmaceutical companies get away with that kind of crap. The answer is simple; there is not enough competition. The reason for the lack of competition is the state-mandated tax and licensure requirements that make the pharmaceutical market a "closed shop", so to speak.

We see this phenomenon everywhere, but we rarely recognize it. Licensures, labor unions, regulations...etc etc - all are presented in the guise of protecting the consumer or the worker, but their actual purpose is to defeat market mechanisms. Established business and labor do not like having to compete, and who does, really? Thus, they simply outlaw the competition.

Pharmaceutical companies are no different. It takes nearly a decade to get a drug approved by the FDA and it takes millions of dollars. Entrepeneurs cannot compete with that. They often have to get investment just to develop their drugs, and their investors often want to see a return on their investment in fairly short order. They often end up selling their formulas to companies that can finance development.

Only the rich can develop and market drugs, so it is no surprise that the pharmaceutical market is less than efficient. Even so, people get killed by bad medicine all the time. The FDA does nothing to help that, other than to serve as a buffer between consumers and the indutsry. Where consumer outrage and litigation should provide a rapid and furious end to bad drug companies, the FDA simply serves to provide a legal barrier to natural market processes, especially when the bad drug in question has been FDA approved.


No, that is not science in business context. Business expects profits, and it gains profits by satisfying consumers. Thus, it expects real results from the researchers it selects in the form of marketable and effective products and solutions. If the researchers fail to deliver, they are a waste of capital and they are fired.

Government science, on the other hand, gets funding by presenting problems. If there are no problems, there is no funding, see?

Sure, marketing does present people with goods they do not need from time to time. Hell, let's assume that everything private industry produces is not actually needed by anyone. Nonetheless, that model sure beats the crap out of the state's modus operandi of supplying funding to people who invent problems. At least the private model produces real and usable economic benefit, rather than pages upon pages of worthless justification for continued funding.

The US is the no. 1 polluter of the world, I'd say that tells more about US then something someone has said. Actions speak louder then words, as they say.

So now you're claiming that you know more about the US than Steve does? Here's a hint, you don't. Not even close.

I'd say that if Herring were American he'd be a Walmart regular... :DL

:doh: