UK warns: Climate change could cause a worldwide recession

thankyougrandma · November 2006

nah, in Canada we say that Climate change is not true, and we make a damn load of money creating more pollution, surplus + surplus = surplus. Later generation will deal with pollution problems, while we're getting richer, stupid ideologic bullshit.

I laughed so hard seeing that publicity from Shell (was it Shell?) talking about how CLEAN the sand digging in Alberta was, how they were "cleaning" the dirt from the sand then putting this "clean" sand back in place for future generations, it was only in english though, i hope nobody bought that.

stuckinline · November 2006

hey, helen, check your pm's......thanks

polaris · November 2006

gluten919 wrote:

hey, helen, check your pm's......thanks

ha! ... i think i did the same thing!

grandma - we as a country are too divided ... we no longer function as a country united ... the model cannot work unless we as a people decide to act as a country and not in our own self interests ...

surferdude · November 2006

Obi Once wrote:

Sure, why don't u start doing research on the positive parts of climate change?

The article's premise is that all change is bad. Change is what you make it. If you don't adapt it is bad. If you adapt change can be great.

Some positives of climate change;
Increased growing seasons in many parts of the world.
Less summer and fall rain in the Pacific NorthWest.
Better tans equals more sexy girls in the Pacific NorthWest.
Awesome surfing in Tofino.
Possibility of rise in ocean water level means dikes may be built higher. Tremendous opportunity for construction companies.
People are looking for greener energy sources. Great opportunity for raising research capital, providing technology innovation opportunities.

Based on this past year, fewer and milder hurricanes in the Carribean and southern States. Next to no flooding in the southern States.

You can stand still, shouting from the roof top that the sky is falling. Or you can adapt to a changing environment. The successful ones won't be the ones screaming the loudest but the ones adapting to change the most effective and efficiently. Change always brings opportunity.

surferdude · November 2006

Obi Once wrote:

Green house emissions are acounted to the country who produce the emission.

Based on who's moral say so. This has always been a horrible weakness of Kyoto. It put no responsibility on the people with the power, the consumer.

It's a farce that many countries think they are doing great combatting greenhouse gas emissions but meanwhile haven't changed their consumption habits. All they've changed is the country the goods are manufactured in. Then they walk tall saying "look how green we are". That's a joke.

thankyougrandma · November 2006

surferdude wrote:

It's a farce that many countries think they are doing great combatting greenhouse gas emissions but meanwhile haven't changed their consumption habits. All they've changed is the country the goods are manufactured in. Then they walk tall saying "look how green we are". That's a joke.

I agree with this, majority of citizens have not even changed their consumptions habits or just their lifestyle, but on the other hands, most will criticize their govt. for not taking actions towards green policies or environmental strategies.

I mean i have this man working here, always talking against the Harper govt. environmental lack of policies, but he's driving that Ford F150 through the trafic everyday, talking about how Wal Mart prices are great, and praising Chile biological apples. I mean it's all about educations of the citizens, and i think it should start from the govt., all our consumptions habits must change, starting with reducing our gaz dependence, watching what we buy and consume (product travel time, workers respect etc. etc.).

farfromglorified · November 2006

I find it fascinating that people seem to hide from that which supports the systems of taxation in this world: be it income tax, property tax, sales tax, "green tax" or any such tribute charged by the state.

I think everyone here is very much aware that I see taxation as morally wrong. I don't expect anyone to agree with me and I understand why few do -- without such systems our lives would be fundamentally different and that scares many people.

But what I do not understand is why a simple request to identify the mechanisms behind such systems of taxation are met with denial. When I claim that taxation is violence and I ask someone who takes issue with that to tell me what would happen to a man or woman who refuses to pay tribute to a nation, I am often met with absolute silence or an even more bizarre claim that such a refusal is impossible. Silence cannot erase your force. To say that the very possible is impossible cannot make it so. Why do you think they can? What are you hiding? Who are you hiding it from? Why are you pretending that the armed force behind your laws does not exist by refusing to name it? If it is so morally just, why deny it, why pretend it does not exist, why refuse to acknowledge it?

If you wish to justify theft or define it as something else, that is certainly your right. But to suggest, by refusing to give name to the armed force behind your actions, that a population has free choice when you have constructed a system wherein they are met with that force when making certain choices is very strange to me. Why do you think you can have both? Why do you think you can threaten to arrest, harm, confine or kill another human being and then claim that he's "free"? How do you think you can reject the violence others commit to you while, at the same time, embracing the violence you will commit to them? How does that work?

Try as one might, one cannot deny the difference between a beggar and a robber. A beggar is a man who pits your money against your sympathy. He is the lowest form of a salesman, but he is still a salesman. He offers you a product and allows you to accept or reject his proposition on your terms. The robber, however, is a criminal. He pits your money against your safety and he does so on his terms, not your own. The beggar will let you walk away if you do not like his proposition. The robber will not. A robber without violence is a beggar. A beggar with violence is a robber. The difference is clear and the difference is defined precisely by the force or lack thereof.

Do we live in such a world where the difference between a robber and a beggar is a moral zero? Have we made them the same by denying the existence of the will of the victim and the possibility of violence to override it? Is ours a moral code where the hypocrisy of embracing violence to reject violence does not matter? How is such a thing possible since hypocrisy requires the violation of principle while morality requires the opposite?

It is everyone's right to meet these questions with silence. I do not expect anyone to answer them, nor do I feel anyone is obligated to answer them. But I think this will be my last posting here because I can no longer hope to answer these questions myself. I cannot understand those among you who seem to reject the violence that hurts you but demand the violence that helps you, all the while speaking of "cooperation" and "unity" and "altruism" and, most horrifically, "peace". I do not understand your morality. I cannot find your principles without finding another that contradicts them.

Please be good to one another. But above all else, please be good to yourself.

surferdude · November 2006

FFG - Great post. I think you explained your position in a way most people can understand. That in itself is quite the achievement round here.

Hope&Anger · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

But what I do not understand is why a simple request to identify the mechanisms behind such systems of taxation are met with denial. When I claim that taxation is violence and I ask someone who takes issue with that to tell me what would happen to a man or woman who refuses to pay tribute to a nation, I am often met with absolute silence or an even more bizarre claim that such a refusal is impossible. Silence cannot erase your force. To say that the very possible is impossible cannot make it so. Why do you think they can? What are you hiding? Who are you hiding it from? Why are you pretending that the armed force behind your laws does not exist by refusing to name it? If it is so morally just, why deny it, why pretend it does not exist, why refuse to acknowledge it?

Okay, I'll step up, but I don't have much time today, so I may have to keep it short.

I admit that our tax laws -- I'll say all our laws -- are violence. They force us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise do. I might like to drive on the left side of the road every so often, but I'm "forced" by the state to drive on the right. I'm "forced" to feed parking meters or be faced with the parking ticket -- a form of coercion. If I am driving carelessly, and I hit someone with my car, the state "forces" me to compensate my victim. Our criminal laws are clearly coercive. And if you want to characterize force and coercion as violence, I'm certainly not going to stop you -- although I know a lot of people who will complain bitterly.

I think what distinguishes you from my friends who'd complain is that you are, I think, fiercely protective of your individual freedom to a much greater extent than they are. I don't think I've ever seen you acknowledge a willing participation in any collectivity, and to the extent that you do participate in collectivities, you insist that you do so of your own free will -- like entering into contracts.

My friends (and I for the most part) think of ourselves as belonging to groups, to society. And to make things run smoothly -- to get out of Hobbes' "state of nature" (which totally sucks) -- we're willing to trade away some of our individual freedom by entering into a social contract. And entering that social contract means that we all give up some of our freedom and we have to chip in for public goods -- like traffic rules and paved roads and garbage collection (and public education and clean air and war and a lot more controversial things). Now, people who object to giving up this freedom are going to call this violence, force, coercion. I prefer to think about it as the price I pay for living in society. And frankly, I don't know how much individual freedom I have in the first place -- I have so many demands placed on me by family, friends, colleagues that "doing what I want" seems like an utter abstraction.

Anyway . . .

Obi Once · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

Again, this is the logic of the mafia. If I hold you up at the ATM, you still have lots of "choices". However, you cannot erase the fact that I'm threatening you with force if you make the "wrong" choice.

The logic of the mafia is that if you don't support them by paying for protection against the mafia itself you will get hurt, which makes me think of what Dick said again.

There IS no wrong choice, just a more expensive one. You can drink your beer, presumably with a lower tax rate than your liquor, yet you can still buy your Scotsch altho at higher costs. Same goes for the tax I'm talking about.

Obi Once · November 2006

surferdude wrote:

The article's premise is that all change is bad. Change is what you make it. If you don't adapt it is bad. If you adapt change can be great.

Some positives of climate change;
Increased growing seasons in many parts of the world.
Less summer and fall rain in the Pacific NorthWest.
Better tans equals more sexy girls in the Pacific NorthWest.
Awesome surfing in Tofino.
Possibility of rise in ocean water level means dikes may be built higher. Tremendous opportunity for construction companies.
People are looking for greener energy sources. Great opportunity for raising research capital, providing technology innovation opportunities.

Which are countered by ecological systems collapsing due to changes in temperature, foreighn species taking over, brids and insects not being able to adapt.

Being from the Netherlands I'll never see the rising sea level as a chance to invest in hihger dikes, we already have to cope with the sea and it will get only worse with rising sea levels.

Better tans with higher chance of skin cancer?

Less rain fall also means less succesfull crowth in crops.

Based on this past year, fewer and milder hurricanes in the Carribean and southern States. Next to no flooding in the southern States.

But the huricanes that reached e.g. US shores were heavier than those in many years.

You can stand still, shouting from the roof top that the sky is falling. Or you can adapt to a changing environment. The successful ones won't be the ones screaming the loudest but the ones adapting to change the most effective and efficiently. Change always brings opportunity.

We might be able to adapt but the rest of the eco system will not.

Heineken Helen · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

Ah...and why don't I get the car HH??? Why would they not sell it to me???

Because you did NOT pay all the costs associated with buying the car :rolleyes:

*sigh* thankfully I have been asked by several people to cease this argument so I feel I am 'morally' (

) obliged to respect the mental health of those reading this thread by desisting. Coincidentally, it will also help MY mental health as I have probably made the same point about ten times and the response was to ask the exact same question

evenkat · November 2006

Heineken Helen wrote:

Because you did NOT pay all the costs associated with buying the car :rolleyes:

*sigh* thankfully I have been asked by several people to cease this argument so I feel I am 'morally' ( ) obliged to respect the mental health of those reading this thread by desisting. Coincidentally, it will also help MY mental health as I have probably made the same point about ten times and the response was to ask the exact same question

Ah don't give up.

Heineken Helen wrote:

But nobody is holding a gun to anybodys head, but since we use the gun rhetoric :rolleyes: if you buy a gun and use it to kill somebody, you are responsible for your actions? Yes??? If you steal something from somebody, you are responsible for your actions? Yes??? If you break somebody's window, you are responsible for your actions? Yes??? If you harm the planet in which we all live, should you not also be responsible for your actions???

This makes total sense to me. Have you read Al Gore's book yet - it's very good. Just think he could and should have been our President. People think there are no differences between the Democrats and Republicans but this topic is actually one of the differences.

farfromglorified · November 2006

Obi Once wrote:

The logic of the mafia is that if you don't support them by paying for protection against the mafia itself you will get hurt, which makes me think of what Dick said again.

There IS no wrong choice, just a more expensive one. You can drink your beer, presumably with a lower tax rate than your liquor, yet you can still buy your Scotsch altho at higher costs. Same goes for the tax I'm talking about.

I will try this one more time in the hope that my question is not coming across clearly enough.

You say there is "no wrong choice", just a "more expensive one". You tell me that a mafia charges me protection money with the threat of harm, not considering my will in the matter. You tell me that the government is different. Now, considering your example above along with the concept of "green tax", can you please tell me then what would happen if I make this choice:

I open a liquor store, or a car dealership. And I do not charge your tax to my customers. Therefore, my prices are less expensive. And because of this, thousands of my fellow citizens come to my store and buy my products. And none of the money they exchange with me is given to the government.

What happens then? What does your government do in the face of my choice which, as you indicate, cannot be wrong since there is no wrong choice?

redrock · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

I
I open a liquor store, or a car dealership. And I do not charge your tax to my customers. Therefore, my prices are less expensive. And because of this, thousands of my fellow citizens come to my store and buy my products. And none of the money they exchange with me is given to the government.

You open a store of any kind, you need to purchase stock - you purchase stock, you pay taxes on stock and therefore have a total price of a product. You then choose to mark-up the product (ie make a profit so your business survives). How you choose to mark-up (or not if you don't mind your business going down the drain in no time) is your choice - purchase price + mark-up + tax = total selling price of product. Take away taxes, no worries but then total selling price will be less (but then you may choose to go volume instead of price). Basically, money has already gone to the government when you purchased stock, money will go to the government following sales (whether you like it or not - it's part of the selling price), money will go to the government on your earnings.... Taxes all over the place. Should you choose not to declare/pay your taxes - what could happen? You could go to jail...... It is a choice.... If you don't want to pay taxes on something, don't buy the goods.

evenkat · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

I will try this one more time in the hope that my question is not coming across clearly enough.

You say there is "no wrong choice", just a "more expensive one". You tell me that a mafia charges me protection money with the threat of harm, not considering my will in the matter. You tell me that the government is different. Now, considering your example above along with the concept of "green tax", can you please tell me then what would happen if I make this choice:

I open a liquor store, or a car dealership. And I do not charge your tax to my customers. Therefore, my prices are less expensive. And because of this, thousands of my fellow citizens come to my store and buy my products. And none of the money they exchange with me is given to the government.

What happens then? What does your government do in the face of my choice which, as you indicate, cannot be wrong since there is no wrong choice?

New York State has imposed the highest tax on cigarettes in the country. This was done for 2 reasons: 1 to stop people from buying them because they wouldn't be able to afford them; 2 to help pay for the medical costs of the ailments that come from smoking and second hand smoke. So why would we have such a tax like this - to protect the environment and save lives from the effects of smoking. Now smoking is banned from all public buildings including restaurants and bars in NYS.

Have you ever heard about investing money into something that may have a greater benefit and could even save lives? Everyday businesses make risky investments. There is no cure for cancer or HIV/AIDS yet we still invest a lot of money and time to find a cure with the belief that someday the investment will payoff and save lives. That's all that is being asked with protecting and saving our environment. Just think of all the jobs that could be created if we make a full effort in protecting the environment.

farfromglorified · November 2006

redrock wrote:

It is a choice.... If you don't want to pay taxes on something, don't buy the goods.

Yep...same "choice" as the mafia. If you don't want to pay protection money, don't open a business in our neighborhood.

BTW: thank you for at least acknowleding what so many here refuse to -- that the state will force me based on my choice if they judge that choice as wrong.

farfromglorified · November 2006

evenkat wrote:

That's all that is being asked

If it was being asked, I'd have absolutely no problem with it. But you cannot threaten violence against someone and then say "it's being asked".

A beggar asks you for your money. A robber threatens you for it. Do you see the difference?

Heineken Helen · November 2006

evenkat wrote:

Ah don't give up.

This makes total sense to me. Have you read Al Gore's book yet - it's very good. Just think he could and should have been our President. People think there are no differences between the Democrats and Republicans but this topic is actually one of the differences.

It's not about giving up - sometimes there's just no point... it's like the old abortion threads all over again :rolleyes: and we all know how THOSE end up :eek:

I haven't read his book yet and I want to see an inconvenient truth too... might wait til it's on DVD

redrock · November 2006

farfromglorified wrote:

Yep...same "choice" as the mafia. If you don't want to pay protection money, don't open a business in our neighborhood.

Not the same choice. Not quite on the tax thing, but I CHOOSE not to buy goods from certain countries for 'political' reasons - same as you may want to choose not to pay tax for 'political' reasons - a question of principle, personal choice. You choose not to buy a car because of taxes, it's not going to affect your life that much, you have alternatives. It's just a material thing. No one is putting a gun to my head, no one is threatening breaking my legs or hands....

Also the taxes on those goods are used in a manner to 'better' the environment, our lives, etc.

The mafia & protection money.. threat, fear, maiming, death (?). Someone IS putting a gun to your head. Not 'complying' will greatly affect your life, your family, your future. The protection money (ie what you compare to a tax) is used for drugs, illegal business, etc....

There is a difference. I don't think the comparison was a good one.

UK warns: Climate change could cause a worldwide recession

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