Global warming is just a lot of hot air, it doesn't exist (at least not in the way the treehuggers claim).
The world economy isn't any worse overall than it has been in a long time, though there are local problems in Europe.
There's never been less wars and conflict than now and what there is doesn't affect me directly.
Crime is bad, but not a lot worse than in the past.
Overall, economics and crime affect me the most but not at a global scale.
The only worries I have about "global warming" is the incredible amount of resources being wasted on it that could be far better spent fighting crime and improving the economy.
jwenting
duckman
8,392 posts since Nov 2004
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I would have to say confilct. I live in the US and it worries me that we are always into other countries affairs, and not worried about our own well being.
Next, I would have to say economics. These high gas prices cause a chain of reactions. First, you can't drive many places which causes stores to lose buisiness. They in turn raise prices, and it just keeps going from there.
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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If the western world wouldn't antagonize the middle east, then maybe our oil prices wouldn't be so high. Well maybe people wouldn't be so pissed if they didn't drive $50,000 mobile fortresses that get half a mile to a gallon. It is a sad state of affairs in the world when people are more worried about high prices than genocide in Africa.
First of all, have you ever heard of a thing called supply and demand? Oil is being produced as FAST as it can possibly be produced. The western world "antagonizing"(as you put it) the middle east has nothing to do with oil prices. The demand is simply to high.
Wait a minute, you just were bashing intervention into other nations, and now your saying we need to worry about genocide in Africa? Your spinning what you just said?
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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I am not a treehugger, neither am I a gas and coal powered maniac. But global warming does exist and in the long term it is the most influential current affair. :-|
Wrong. The TOTAL effect of human activity on the global climate is so small as to be impossible to measure against the inaccuracy of the data used.
While the climate is indeed changing, that's not because of any human activity but purely due to natural changes that would happen no matter what we did to either accellerate it or slow it down.
For example, the entire benefit of the Kyoto debacle (which will destroy the economies of the countries foolish enough to have comitted to it) will be AT MOST a 0.7 degree drop in average global temperature over a 50 year period.
That's about 3 times smaller than the minimum detectable change over such a period that's statistically significant.
Remember that we're living in an interglacial. That's a period of time between two glacial eras. Such periods can last anywhere from a few thousand to over 20.000 years. We're currently well past the halfway point in one.
The main thing interglacials have in common is wild and unpredictable climate swings. Global average temperatures can varry by as much as 10-15 degrees over a few decades. Other climate factors can varry by similarly large numbers.
You might be surprised that the warmest climate of the last several hundred years was BEFORE the industrial revolution, so before the output of the hated (by the greens) carbon dioxide began in earnest.
The current warming up didn't in fact start until well AFTER the peak of those emissions and have gone down ever since the 1970s in the western world yet the climate isn't getting any colder.
No, I don't worry about the climate insofar as human activity might influence it on a global scale.
Local scale is different, on a spot level human activity can have an influence by changing small scale wind and precipitation patterns but those effects don't translate to larger climate structures.
For example (and an example literally close to home for me), wind turbines will change the wind patterns and thereby the rainfall and temperatures around them for up to several hundred meters. This has led to crops not receiving the amount of rain needed, and thus reduced harvests.
jwenting
duckman
8,392 posts since Nov 2004
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[edit:BTW, congrats on 500 posts server_crash :mrgreen: ]
Thank you, I didn't even notice myself!
About the environment, I don't worry about it too much, because I feel like there is little we can do. Some things you just have to deal with.
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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My motto "Don't worry be happy :D" ... not worried at all about the globe ... just worried about my home and my work place.
nanosani
Unauthenticated Liar
1,830 posts since Jul 2004
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Energy saving national projects should be put into action, but of course Bush won't do that, because it'll take away potential profits from big business. Of course the prices will be high by simple economic laws, but go figure, political matters are capable of effecting trade too!
Really? Are you sure? I swear a simple search on google brought up millions of finds on Bush's energy proposal which support production over conservation..
Where did you get that information from? I'll believe it when you site a non-biased source.
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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[QUOTE=Kanichton]
Supporting Israel like the US does certainly doesn't help our reputation around the middle east, nor does conquering a soverign nation like Iraq. As far as Africa, I was pointing out that the US isn't intervening, despite the fact that millions of people are being murdered... oil is more important evidently. Weapons of mass destruction.. what about North Korea? Bush is holding onto the idea that negotiations will work, while Kim Jong-Il won't even negotiate anymore. And we know that he has nuclear weapons, and being as unstable as he is, he just might use them. Harboring terrorists? Gimme a break... the United States is not well liked in the middle east, so this should come as no suprise.
/QUOTE]
Once again, your spinning. Your worried about our reputation and don't like the way we intervine, but you want us to do something about Africa? We've sent billions over to that country. They are a soveriegn Continent all together, and you bash bush about intervining in Iraq? Try to keep one point of view, the switching back and forth is confusing me.
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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I am more concerned about the war than some because as a Briton I believe that my country should not have been involved at all. Hopefully Labor will be voted out this year and then Britian can finally get some well deserved peace.
Which brings me on to another question.
Do you personally think the all out war was a good idea?
I really like Tony Blair, and I hope Bush hasen't cost him the election.
Anyways, I think war was a terrible decision. We have enough problems of our own. Right now, we are over in North Korea protecting their borders, when our country desperately needs our borders protected...But that's an issue I'd rather not get into! I personally don't like the choices that's been made, but there is nothing I can do about them. It's really too late to pull out of Iraq right now, and we would look silly to just leave them at total anarachy.
It's a hard topic to talk about. I don't agree with it, but nothing I can do.
server_crash
Postaholic
2,111 posts since Jun 2004
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First, I didn´t want to get involved in this very controversial topic but it´s getting interesting and I can´t resist...too bad you didn´t get the poll in it JJ...
There will always be crime, it´s human nature and out of our individual control, so it doesn´t worry me, although it bothers me.
Golbal warming isn´t an issue at all. The fluctuations we think we are experiencing are on such a small period that they are unimportant in the long term. Have you ever seen a picture of the earth - you can´t even see us - at most, everything that humans have accomplished and even our existance appears as an extremely thin scum on the surface of the planet. The long-term climactic changes on earth are a result of forces way beyond our ability to understand or affect yet, like planetary entropy, friction, gravity, etc.
World economy is a function of forces beyond our control as well. We can manipulate the markets all we want and inertia will force it back to the middle with time. It has a mind of its own.
So, the one thing, out of these choices, that is in our control, although on a global scale, is conflict. I will only address Iraq here, specifically, as a debate about war is too large a subject for this thread:
Iraq was necessary for one reason. There was much debate over a long period of time about taking on Sadaam. It was thought that he was the only force that was keeping the middle east from imploding, for a variety of reasons, and that removing him would result in an all-out fiasco over the entire region when that, admittedly weird, stability was gone.
We don´t know for certain all the reasons the US is there, those are state secrets. However, it is certain that if we had not made some kind of a move in the region, there would develop problems with atomic weapons that we would regret. It is already happening and we may even be too late to stop it now. But I believe that is the sole reason that we made the move we did. It was a gamble and we are a long way to understanding the result.
Remember that these guys hate the west. On top of that, they have been fighting one another for thousands of years. It has nothing to do with religion, even though they use that as an excuse, because the religions have very similar roots, the religions protagonists, Jesus, Mohammud, etc. are related. But religions have been used like that since they have existed.
So, in the long run, the British and the Americans opted to intervene in an area that could blow up in all our faces at any time. Was it right? Would it be right to try and defuse a bomb in your back yard? Argue all you want about the rightness...it´s done now. Let´s support the fixing of the problem. You cannot have peace if somebody out there wants war, no matter who it is...
zeroth
Nearly a Posting Virtuoso
1,226 posts since Mar 2005
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And let's not forget that the US and all other UN members had a mandate (and in fact a duty) from the UN to do what the US dating back to 1991.
The treaty terms for the ceasefire in the first war against Iraq clearly stated that Iraq was to provide unimpeded access to UN arms inspectors and not to have any weapons in the designated zones in the north and south. They violated both provisions constantly.
In fact, the US and allies should have acted against Iraq 10 years ago.
jwenting
duckman
8,392 posts since Nov 2004
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