Criminalizing Climate Change Denial

If there is a smoking gun showing similar bad faith, that oil company executives hid scientific information from their investors and the public, or engaged in a deliberate campaign of deception to protect their interests, I think the analogy to the tobacco industry is fairly solid.
The attempts to mitigate 'climate change' overwhelmingly attack the coal mines (and miners). There are as many or more cars than ever, and pressure for ever more air traffic - both of which use oil!

David
 
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Wait a minute... Are you saying because the science is in, somehow Mother Nature is in jackboots for Climate Deniers?
Let's step back a bit, and remind everyone that not believing in Global Warming is believing in the same tired model we're supposed to be fighting in Skeptiko.
The tired model of Materialism that says, "We don't affect anything. We have no connection to others. Our pollution and consumerist lifestyle does nothing to the planet."

But we know that's not true in every other aspect of Skeptiko. Why would we take the opposite position suggesting that somehow more human beings lving on this planet than there have ever been born are NOT making an affect?

Effectively those who are saying climate change doesn't exist are pretty much watching the house burn down and blaming the Fire Marshalls for faking the heat temperatures in the building.
 
Wait a minute... Are you saying because the science is in, somehow Mother Nature is in jackboots for Climate Deniers?

I'm confused by this statement.

I'm saying someone with a point of view who voices that point of view should not be arrested. Individual liberty and the free exchange of ideas is beneficial to humanity and the world.

Let's step back a bit, and remind everyone that not believing in Global Warming is believing in the same tired model we're supposed to be fighting in Skeptiko.
The tired model of Materialism that says, "We don't affect anything. We have no connection to others. Our pollution and consumerist lifestyle does nothing to the planet."

I disagree. I'm all for people becoming aware of our connectedness and making environmentally friendly choices. I'm not for labeling the air we exhale a pollutant and using that label to justify the theft of more money and power from us by a corrupt technocratic elite few. I'm not convinced the amount of warming we've seen is unnatural unusual or harmful. I'm not convinced more CO2 would be bad for the planet. I am convinced past catastrophic climate predictions have failed and I am convinced the globalist elites want to scare well meaning people into accepting a tax on basically all energy usage and even the air we breathe because the power to tax is the power to control and destroy and they believe artificial energy scarcity must be created to reduce the world's population which ballooned thanks to cheap energy.
 
I'm saying someone with a point of view who voices that point of view should not be arrested. Individual liberty and the free exchange of ideas is beneficial to humanity and the world.

Then you misunderstand the original link. This is specifically about the oil companies deliberately hiding information and research [about climate change] from their investors and the public.
 
Is there no way on Xenforo to dump just these climate threads, without resorting to having to block the poster?
 
I'm confused by this statement.

I'm saying someone with a point of view who voices that point of view should not be arrested. Individual liberty and the free exchange of ideas is beneficial to humanity and the world.

I disagree. I'm all for people becoming aware of our connectedness and making environmentally friendly choices. I'm not for labeling the air we exhale a pollutant and using that label to justify the theft of more money and power from us by a corrupt technocratic elite few. I'm not convinced the amount of warming we've seen is unnatural unusual or harmful. I'm not convinced more CO2 would be bad for the planet. I am convinced past catastrophic climate predictions have failed and I am convinced the globalist elites want to scare well meaning people into accepting a tax on basically all energy usage and even the air we breathe because the power to tax is the power to control and destroy and they believe artificial energy scarcity must be created to reduce the world's population which ballooned thanks to cheap energy.

Certainly I believe people have the right to explore any idea they can. I'm a Skeptiko listener after all ;)
But to suggest that somehow that more money is being made by Climate Change scientists than Oil Companies to deny it, is pretty disingenuous. You know how much money is in the game to Deny Climate Change?

I don't think people are claiming that Carbon Dioxide in appropriate levels is a pollutant. But frankly, everything in moderation. We live in a very balanced eco-system, which once again doesn't take very much investigative spirit to recognize we're destroying. You know that we've almost entirely fished out the known ocean right?
And while you may be convinced that previous climate change predictions have failed- I would say understanding Climate science is the trickiest science problem we've had to date because of the scope of it.
That being said, you can't deny that we are constantly getting hotter. World temperature records, wildfires, animal migration and extinction. All of these are not inconvenient happenstances, but results of what's going on.
 
Certainly I believe people have the right to explore any idea they can. I'm a Skeptiko listener after all ;)

Good :)

But to suggest that somehow that more money is being made by Climate Change scientists than Oil Companies to deny it, is pretty disingenuous. You know how much money is in the game to Deny Climate Change?

I'm not suggesting the scientists are the tip of the pyramid. The big oil companies (Specifically Enron and I think BP and Shell) came up with the idea to label CO2 as pollution to set up a carbon credit trading scheme. The SO2 credit trading scheme worked so well and made Enron so much extra money, they thought why not do the same with CO2? And they could use it to put competition like coal out of business.

http://thehighersidechats.com/james-corbett-rockefeller-history-the-big-conspiracy-breakdown/

I don't think people are claiming that Carbon Dioxide in appropriate levels is a pollutant. But frankly, everything in moderation.

Who decides what "appropriate levels" are? And what if they decide to change the definition in the future? CO2 is essential to basically all life on earth. Plants thrive when the CO2 is elevated above current atmospheric levels. A tax on CO2 is giving a de facto world government control over essentially all life on earth. What starts out sounding somewhat reasonable will inevitably be taken to absurdity.

We live in a very balanced eco-system, which once again doesn't take very much investigative spirit to recognize we're destroying. You know that we've almost entirely fished out the known ocean right?

I'm a nature lover and want to preserve the beauty of nature and our ecosystem as much as anyone. I just don't think we should conflate legitimate environmental issues with CO2 which is not known to be harmful to the earth. We should recognize the push for a CO2 tax scheme as a new mode of corrupt centralized control combined with an agenda to reduce the world's population. Personally I wish there were fewer people around but I'm not for deceiving them into accepting policies that will kill them off by shutting off their power and jacking the price of necessities.

And while you may be convinced that previous climate change predictions have failed-

Many have failed. Even proponents of AGW recognize this. Here's an example from an AGW proponent:

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"...there is not much doubt that the rate of warming since the late 1990’s is less than that predicted by most of the IPCC AR5 simulations of historical climate. This can be seen in the RSS data, as well as most other temperature datasets....In this figure, the thick black line is from a climate data record derived from microwave sounding satellite (MSU and AMSU ) measurements. Each of the thin light blue lines represents the temperature anomaly time series for the same atmospheric layer from one of 33 IPCC climate model simulations that I have analyzed."
http://www.remss.com/research/climate
http://www.remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures

I would say understanding Climate science is the trickiest science problem we've had to date because of the scope of it.
That being said, you can't deny that we are constantly getting hotter. World temperature records, wildfires, animal migration and extinction. All of these are not inconvenient happenstances, but results of what's going on.

The world has been getting hotter since long before the industrial revolution began. We're still coming out of the last ice age. The Great Lakes used to be full of ice. Those glaciers didn't melt away because of anthropogenic CO2. I think the world is probably a lot nicer today without glaciers everywhere. Perhaps it would be even greener and nicer with a little more CO2.

"Record temperatures" when we've only been keeping records for about 150 years means very little. Last year we set a lot of new record lows too. We've seen a decrease in number and intensity of hurricanes and tornadoes. Droughts and wildfires have long occurred in various places around the globe and these are in the historical record long before we started pumping oil.
 
Then you misunderstand the original link. This is specifically about the oil companies deliberately hiding information and research [about climate change] from their investors and the public.

This is a lot like the big banksters pretending to be against the 16th amendment and the Federal Reserve act.... it's a lot like Br'er Rabbit saying, "Oh no! Don't throw me in that briar patch!"

What will happen is that someone will be a scapegoat (like a Bernie Madoff) to make the public feel like justice is being done. A minor fine will be slapped on a few big oil companies who can easily absorb it. Then the legal precedent will be set to go after their competition as well as other independent individuals who are merely exercising their right to free speech.
 
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Who decides what "appropriate levels" are? And what if they decide to change the definition in the future? CO2 is essential to basically all life on earth.

Man, I have a request for you. Please, argue for all your worth that psi is an empty phenomenon of biased pseudo-scientists who couldn't spot a magician's trick if they had James Randi to guide them, and that the field of parapsychology is a blind alley not worth treading, if only you would at the same time reverse your view on climate science. If you have to pick a scientific discipline to politicise, then, by God, please pick the one whose denial isn't going to lead us into a literal hell.
 
Man, I have a request for you. Please, argue for all your worth that psi is an empty phenomenon of biased pseudo-scientists who couldn't spot a magician's trick if they had James Randi to guide them, and that the field of parapsychology is a blind alley not worth treading, if only you would at the same time reverse your view on climate science. If you have to pick a scientific discipline to politicise, then, by God, please pick the one whose denial isn't going to lead us into a literal hell.

There is no solid indication that increasing CO2 levels are leading us into a literal hell. However I can easily imagine a global government with the power to tax and control CO2 making the world a literal North Korean style hell.
 
There is no solid indication that increasing CO2 levels are leading us into a literal hell. However I can easily imagine a global government with the power to tax and control CO2 making the world a literal North Korean style hell.

Australia put a price on carbon in the late 2000s. Then, the next change of government eliminated it. How much "taxation" did this spare? Let's consult the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Fact Check of the incoming government's claim that "axing the tax" saved the average consumer $550 per annum: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-...ctricity-prices-carbon-tax-fact-check/6668552.

Tony Wood, director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute, told Fact Check that drops in electricity prices "vary widely across Australia due to variations in both consumption and carbon intensity of supply".

He estimated the average household's electricity bill was reduced by $120 in 2014-15.

"I struggle to get anywhere close to the $200 on average," he said.

Mr Wood agreed that the Government's claim on the impact of the removal of the carbon tax on household savings is "of the right order of magnitude".

But he said it's difficult to place an exact figure on it, and that "the removal of the carbon price in 2014 has saved most consumers a few hundred dollars per year, not less than $10 and not more than $1,000".

If the Australian solution is at all representative of "taxing" solutions in general, are you really going to raise hell about a couple of hundred bucks per taxpayer per year going towards a realistic stemming of what is blatantly obvious: the undeniable-by-now carbon-induced increase in temperature?

Is it worth, given that you are by all measures likely wrong in your stance, opposing solutions like that to save that amount of money, especially given that the proceeds are going to be directed towards further stemming the heat?
 
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Note: edited my previous post to include the more relevant part of Mr Tony Woods' quote.
 
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Australia put a price on carbon in the late 2000s. Then, the next change of government eliminated it. How much "taxation" did this spare? Let's consult the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Fact Check of the incoming government's claim that "axing the tax" saved the average consumer $550 per annum: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-...ctricity-prices-carbon-tax-fact-check/6668552.



If the Australian solution is at all representative of "taxing" solutions in general, are you really going to raise hell about a couple of hundred bucks per taxpayer per year going towards a realistic stemming of what is blatantly obvious: the undeniable-by-now carbon-induced increase in temperature?

Is it worth, given that you are by all measures likely wrong in your stance, opposing solutions like that to save that amount of money, especially given that the proceeds are going to be directed towards further stemming the heat?

You've got to think bigger picture and longer term. Look at the income tax in the US for historical example. It was unconstitutional for 137 years to tax wages. Why? Because it is a violation of natural rights for someone to put a gun to your head and take your money which represents your labor which is your life. Wages are an equal exchange for labor between private individuals and the government has no right step into this private exchange and demand a piece of your labor.

The 16th amendment in 1913 supposedly made an income tax constitutional, but it was still extremely unpopular. It was only the fear generated during WWII that got people to accept a very small seemingly reasonable tax and withholding of wages to "save the earth" from evil. Of course that was just the beginning. Today we have an oppressive tax code thousands of pages long and an IRS that abuses its power being used against political enemies.

So what now begins as a relatively small seemingly reasonable tax to "save the earth" will likewise balloon over the next fifty to one hundred years into an oppressive invasive theft of our production controlling every aspect of our children's lives.

Furthermore, this will be used to reduce the world population through artificial scarcity. Cheap energy has allowed the population to balloon. Making energy expensive will squeeze it back down. I want a more humane way to balance the population with the environment than Malthusian economics and starvation.
 
First: as I've pointed out to you in the past, a tax on carbon erodes its own base - how dangerous can that be?

Second: whilst I can see the merit in small government, I can also definitely see the merit in a government which takes a reasonably proportionate amount from all to guarantee services to all. You seem to have a black-and-white view on the "evils" of taxation, which I strongly question. Ask Scandinavians how they feel about being amongst the highest taxed people in the world: many (most?) of them are very happy to bear that burden for the socioeconomic guarantees it provides them.
 
First: as I've pointed out to you in the past, a tax on carbon erodes its own base - how dangerous can that be?

Part of the erosion of that base is the population die off. When the globalists are creating their own money, it's not about more quantities of money. It's about control.

Second: whilst I can see the merit in small government, I can also definitely see the merit in a government which takes a reasonably proportionate amount from all to guarantee services to all. You seem to have a black-and-white view on the "evils" of taxation, which I strongly question. Ask Scandinavians how they feel about being amongst the highest taxed people in the world: many (most?) of them are very happy to bear that burden for the socioeconomic guarantees it provides them.

It is never right for any power to steal personal property under threat of violence.

You keep using the term reasonable. Government is not reason. It is force. What is "reasonable" is the sales pitch. Power corrupts and what starts out seeming reasonable will not remain so.

I know Europe has in some areas gone far towards socialism and on smaller scales for shorter periods of time in old mature well balanced cultures it might work fairly well for a period of time. But eventually spending other people's money fails as a governmental and economic system. Eventually those with the purse strings become corrupt and those getting the handouts get lazy and entitled and things fall apart. Look at Venezuela now for a great example of socialism failing.
 
Part of the erosion of that base is the population die off.

Wait, seriously? A couple of hundred extra dollars a year (to a very worthy cause - a lifesaving one) is going to kill people?

It is never right for any power to steal personal property under threat of violence.

You keep using the term reasonable. Government is not reason. It is force. What is "reasonable" is the sales pitch. Power corrupts and what starts out seeming reasonable will not remain so.

What is "reasonable" is what the majority agree to in the best interests of all. Taxation as "theft" is a minority view, and unsupported by its benefits. Granted, there are some uses to which taxation is put which are very much unreasonable, such as militarisation, but that is not a systemic problem; rather, it is a problem contingent on unrepresentative governance.

I know Europe has in some areas gone far towards socialism and on smaller scales for shorter periods of time in old mature well balanced cultures it might work fairly well for a period of time. But eventually spending other people's money fails as a governmental and economic system. Eventually those with the purse strings become corrupt and those getting the handouts get lazy and entitled and things fall apart. Look at Venezuela now for a great example of socialism failing.

You are right, Venezuala is now in dire straits, but could it really ever have been described as "socialist"? Socialism is ownership of the means of production by the workers: I would contend that nowhere has this state of affairs actually occurred on other than a local scale; certainly never on the scale of a country the size of Venezuala. Always, in so-called "socialist" states, the means of production have been either in the hands of "elected representatives", who do not necessarily truly represent the workers, or in the hands of "party bureaucrats", who almost certainly do not represent the workers. And so, I would contend that genuine ownership of the means of production by the workers - or, in other words, "the average man on the street having his fair share of political power" - would be indefinitely, and positively, viable, just as is the social democracy (note: distinct from democratic socialism, even though they sound similar) of "old mature well balanced cultures" in Europe.
 
Wait, seriously? A couple of hundred extra dollars a year (to a very worthy cause - a lifesaving one) is going to kill people?

"A couple hundred dollars a year" is the camel's nose getting under the tent. It will go up dramatically once widely accepted. The old frog in a pot method. By making energy more expensive, food prices go up around the globe exacerbating starvation. Additionally turning off power plants and letting the power infrastructure decay will lead to rolling blackouts which will affect the young sick and elderly. The fragile decaying power grids will eventually be attacked leading to long term power outages. Estimates are that within one year of a widespread grid down scenario in the US that 90% of the population would die off. Granted an attack of this nature is not directly related to the price of fuel but current efforts to bankrupt coal make the power grid more fragile and susceptible to attacks and prevent hardening and modernization efforts from protecting the infrastructure.

You are right, Venezuala is now in dire straits, but could it really ever have been described as "socialist"?

Yeah and was Hitler ever really a Christian? I don't know but this is the problem... Socialism is a utopia (no place) because true socialism will never be found anywhere. It is the lie in the sky ideal held out to sell people on handing over their own sovereignty and substance to the state.

Socialism is ownership of the means of production by the workers: I would contend that nowhere has this state of affairs actually occurred on other than a local scale;

Okay so we agree it is a utopia in the true sense of the word.

If I, a worker, own the means of production then I should own my labor meaning no one can take it from me through taxation.
 
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