Hard News: A voice of reason and authority
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China pretty much hold the mortgages on the west, they also are sort of calling the shots politically. If we are going to get through the next 30 to 40 years of East Asian development without conflict arising from competition for resources, the Chinese and Indians are going to have to lead the world on an alternative energy path. Frankly, if they continue down the western energy technological pathway the whole game will come tumbling down around their and our ears.
USA's healthcare debate
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the Chinese and Indians are going to have to lead the world on an alternative energy path.
Luckily for us they are generally getting their shit together a lot faster than the west did - took hundreds of years for a genuine middle class to emerge in Europe, they're doing it in less than a generation. And climate change concern is a fair way up the hierarchy of needs, so the while growth of the middle class and consumption is bad in the short term, in the longer term it's the only way those countries will change the way they view the problem.
If NZ wants to make a meaningful contribution, we should be sinking money into biotech to reduce carbon emissions caused by cattle and sheep. Solving that problem alone would reduce this country's carbon footprint sustainably, not to mention create a new industry helping other countries' agricultural sectors do the same
I wonder if Greenpeace would be so vocal if NZ's best response to climate change was more research into genetic modification ?
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Hope on China, via Hot Topic
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Cyanobacteria - blue green algae - had an unparalleled two billion year run as the crown of creation, eventually undone by their waste product, the toxic and unstable (for them) free oxygen. It's an ill wind that blows no species any good. All we asked for was another few millenia atop the evolutionary tree before passing the baton to our CO2-loving overlords, whatever they might be.
That's actually kind of debatable; they may have evolved photosynthesis as late as just before we see the transition to an O2 atmosphere in the geological record, rather than having been around for two billion years. Regardless, they're responsible for some ridiculous proportion of photosynthetic production today, besides having several times the mass of our entire species. I'd say they still have that crown.
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That is good news on China. They get demonised by the environmental lobby a lot, but I suspect much of the technology with the best potential for turning climate change around will be coming from that part of the world in the future, not Europe or the US (or NZ for that matter).
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ScottY wrote:
... sorry if this offends any Kelston Old Boys
No offence taken!
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Lucy Stewart - as I understand it, bacteria have mass more than all species combined - and we certainly cannot live without 'em. So I'd figure they're still The Top (Joe's neat whimsy aside.)
(Oh -OT- I agree with you apropos Best - his writing has made me grate my teeth even in "Fishing Methods of the Maori" - but those 2 vols. are probably the best 'single' source to date. I could refer Jeremy E. to a lot of more specific material (including one dealing with the Io/Kio junction - you're right. like S. Percy Smith, Best swallowed some information whole, taking some informants holus bolus...)
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I wonder if Greenpeace would be so vocal if NZ's best response to climate change was more research into genetic modification ?
I've always thought that there would be a crucial point when there would be a GM technology whose environmental benefits were so compelling that people "GE free" people would have to choose.
At that point, you'll see the split between people for whom it's some sort of religious issue, and people who want a result. I note that No Right Turn recently welcomed the prospect of GM low-emissions pasture grass.
In a way, you've already seen that with nuclear energy in some parts of the world.
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The Free Radical and SOLO sites are pretty hard to search but here is the beginning of the debate:
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/intro.php
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/nola1.php
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/perigo2.phpThey go on for a while; there doesn't appear to be an index of the posts but I think it stops at about Perigo 6 and Nola 6.
Thanks. I since figured to do an Advanced Search on the domain, and came up with the full list.
That was both interesting and very frustrating. Lindsay Perigo simply failed to understand basic PHIL 101 level logic, and so Robert Nola had to explain it, and Perigo continued to simply not get it. It made the other aspects of the debate (potentially the more interesting) almost redundant, as Nola patiently tried to explain Perigo's misunderstandings around logic. Basic logic.
Even Libertarian David Kelley tried to get Perigo to understand what philosophers' mean when they say an argument is "valid", but he just didn't get it.
As Nola basically said, what more can you say?
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arriving in here very late.
Shay: environmentalists don't slag off China - the China-bashing was a specific campaign by Bush, Howard and the oil industry who, as the climate science began to firm up considerably in the late 90's, began pointing the finger at China as the [future] problem [and ignoring historical emissions].
The communications strategy stuck, and was seized upon by the likes of Howard and continues to be cited by Governments across the world today as an excuse for inaction at home. Look no further than NZ and Australia for recent "blame china" statements.
Meanwhile the Chinese Govt announced last week that low carbon technologies will form the cornerstone of its economic development path.
It's closing the dirtiest of its coal-fired power stations. It installs a new wind turbine every two hours. It's got a renewable energy target. It's also now announced that its emissions will peak at 2050. Etc. China's got a long way to go but it appears to have been listening to scientists.
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DANG - forgot to post another thing...
Flicking through these pages I read about conspiracy theories. Here's a real one.
yup, the US oil industry getting its employees to look like ordinary citizens to get out and oppose the Waxman Bill in states key to the senate vote on the bill.
A serious bit of astroturfing.
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China's got a long way to go but it appears to have been listening to scientists.
I recall hearing precisely this from someone with some insight about three years ago: whatever other issues we might have with the Chinese government, they do tend to listen to their scientists.
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George W Bush listened to scientists too, most especially in those agonisng months preceding the announcement on stem cell research. He probably read more on this than you & i and all of us internet-bouncing bunnies put together... and where did it get him? Shot from all sides again..
i HAVE taken, DO take, yr point on the "accusatory tone" however, dear Mr Brown... -
Much as I'm interested in the global economic arguments, I just can't get past the "I don't believe the cause of the supposed global warming is human". It makes me think we have little to say to each other.
Lyndon. I would disagree that we have little to say. There are always, at least, two sides to any point of view.
My feeling, it is just a feeling (but then I am Human), is that when you actually look at the overall picture, when you fly for hours over uninhabited (by humans) land and ocean, you can see how insignificant we humans actually are. Ok, so you can look down from your globally polluting 747 and see vast swathes of unadulterated nature.
I guess the real point is how important is the consumer driven commercialism that has been the god of choice since the last global war?
How important is our, supposed, need for gratification.
Shit, if life was so much fun why isn't everybody living it?
Nobody said it was easy, you have to work hard, you have to earn a living.
Geez, my dog has a better life than I do in that respect.
Now. As I was saying...
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What I was going to say was.
Woof.
(Disclaimer: In my dreams I run on all fours) -
Barnes, yr 'selection' of the pharse 'god of choice' may be revealing... for it neatly confuses the thought that this vague 'consumer-drivenness' is our god (which i do not quite believe, for god plainly emerges, in a word, from what is *not* consumed) with the thought that 'choice' itsveryself is the real God, and as such coincides, dare i say, with all that we hold most christian and/or utterly dependent on a purely personal assent...
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Who is the 'we' in the above?
You? Christians? God-believers of any kind or stripe?
God/gods have nothing whatsoever to do human-induced global warming - or anything else for that matter. So keep them/it out of the equation. Thanks. -
Can I just throw in, my acupuncturist/ deep therapy masseur. every Tuesday talks to me about his homeland and is often comparing it to ours and more often than not lately I am at a loss to exlain why we fail in areas he is trying to understand. Maori and general treatment of them is one area that perplexes him. He has a basic (and I believe valid) understanding that we are a small country and to understand their culture would allow them to have identity and respect that would ground them to their land. His surprise is that the Maori language is not important to us in NZ and that is our culture. In his broken English, ( he speaks several dialect from China) he says simply, NZ is soo small, with our capacity to learn although we are young, we can make changes relatively easy. Also I'd have to say he is really aware of pollution on the planet and wouldn't consider disagreeing about changes needed to help it.
As an aside. watched a fascinating Doc on Einstein and a few scientists before and after him, last night.Amongst all the physicists and chemists, didn't mention Rutherford anywhere, Can I blame Anne Tolley? -
our god (which i do not quite believe, for god plainly emerges, in a word, from what is *not* consumed)
So. You're saying God is shit?.
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Who is the 'we' in the above?
It sure ain't Sofies .We.
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Yep. That's an 'us'-
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;-)
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hey, come ON
GW tends to be ever implying that it is WE who are responsible for everything, including the bloodless blessings of climate change
and, as such, can only wait upon our proper comeuppance
(..short, natch, of identifying/excluding the one responsible...) -
We humans are not responsible for *every*thing - I personally disavow any responsibility for the recent spate of Southland/Fiordland earthquakes- but for some things - e.g extinction of all the moa and byebye Stephens Island wrens and, o dear, sorry about that whekau- we are most definitely responsible. And our part in human-induced global warming is also pretty well established.
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I've always thought that there would be a crucial point when there would be a GM technology whose environmental benefits were so compelling that people "GE free" people would have to choose.
"Ah Dr. Zoidberg you have made a bacteria that will eat all the co2"
"Yes Fry, but all the trees have died and you're tuning blue"
Futurama moment.
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