Funny that HJ, Callum and I all have the same view on Christopher Monckton although we all come from different political standpoints.  Some things are just universal.

The problem is that anything quoting him puts up an immediate "that idiot" flag in my mind that kind of loses the rest of the information.

edit- for those of you who think that I have the same political views as HJ- he didn't speak to me for a fornight in May after the last local elections and for the European parliament- again- totally different voting.

on sean's big cranium

 miamizsun wrote: 
 
Oh good grief. On one hand you've got Lord (hereditary - all he had to do to get called "Lord" was to survive child-birth) Monckton spouting his swivel-eyed Hitler lunacies and on the other the Guardian pointing out that there are suggestions that responsibility for climate control should be moved from the UN to that hot-bed of Marxist-Leninism The World Bank.
 
The figure of 2% is, I understand, to be the higher estimated cost to global turnover (ie all of us) of beating climate change, which, compared to the projected costs of carrying on regardless sounds quite reasonable.
 
The Tobin tax - the tax that may be levied on internatonal financial transactions, not industrial or trade, is the earth shatteringly punitative rate of 0.05%. The fact that such a low rate could generate such huge incomes also highlights the insane amounts of electronic cash being shovelled around the system by the banks for very little social benefit yet generating colossal amounts of comission - you can bet your arse that each time a dealer passes on the dough a shitload more than 0.05% sticks on his fingers. Use this to fund research and development into carbon reducing technologies and you're nuturing and expanding a huge new industry, saving the planet and getting the pinstriped wankers on Wall Street and in the City of London to a) atone for getting us into this horrible financial mess after having money shovelled down their throats for the last thirty years and b) start paying their way in society from now on.
 
 

 
*edit* Well, at least that made me feel better.
 

 miamizsun wrote: 
It's always about controlling the people and the money. Sad.

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
Please follow the link, I can't stress it enough.

This carbon tax, and make no mistake, this is the crux of the biscuit, is huge, and my feeling is that once enacted, it won't be reversed.

We can't put the shit back in the horse on this one.

Bait and Switch and Who Really Gets the Dough

Additional skepticism arose last week when it was revealed by Britain's Lord Christopher Monckton warned that the secretive draft version of the Copenhagen climate change treaty represents a global government power grab on an "unimaginable scale," and mandates the creation of 700 new bureaucracies as well as a colossal raft of new taxes including 2 percent levies on both GDP and every international financial transaction.

The London Guardian states things a bit more strongly, reporting;

"The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank."

So it now appears that this massive new system of global taxation will be paid not to the UN, as originally sold , but directly into the coffers of the World Bank.

This has all the appearances of being the funding mechanism of a World Government run by Banks - not elected and not accountable to anyone.

Perhaps none of us should be surprised. Bankers do claim they are doing "god's work", don't they?

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
whadda you mean "went"  ?  

(/jk)

Oh- just saw this.  Thanks peeps.  Sorry if I went a bit school marm.

 jadewahoo wrote: 

I think you might need your flow looking at.

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
mea culpa

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
agreed and all apologies. 

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
So, this is ok?
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I'm just keedin' ya

Welly- and everyone else who is posting long articles- looking down the page miami is the other person to post an overly long article on this page- a personal plea. 

The forum is not usually the place for excessive chunks of text unless it's from the poster themselves.  It really distorts the flow of a topic.  Post the first para or first few paras and then a link to the rest (with an explanation of where the link goes).  If people want to read on they will by clicking through, posting the whole article is unlikely to change views or make anyone a winner in the debate but it does clog up the thread.

How Science Blew the 'Climategate' Attack

Global warming is still fact, but a bumbling response helped deniers cloud the public's understanding.

By: By Colleen Kimmett, 14 December 2009, TheTyee.ca

View full article and comments: http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/12/14/Climategate/

 miamizsun wrote: 

Well I understood (and maybe I am wrong) that Copenhagen is a political summit to succeed Kyoto and sort out the actions to respond to the scientific data agreed by various intergovernmental bodies and it isn't the place for further scientific debate ie it is a political forum, not a scientific one. 

Good to continue to research and to keep an open mind but this is the action point not the "let's think a bit further point".  If further information comes to light showing that the agreed strategy is wrong then we'll have to reassess but for now we go on the best info available. 

Whether we are in time or politically capable of making a difference is another matter..

 callum wrote: 
Why do you think she lost? Because she wasn't well resourced?

I thought she just agreed to go look at more supposedly good information. (I think we all should strive for that)

The consensus isn't in. I heard on satellite that there are several scientists (on the anthropogenic global warming/climate change side) that have expressed interest in speaking up if they can be assured of their positions/safety. I want to hear what everyone has to say.

We'll see what happens.

I believe we should really open this debate up.

Lay all of the best data we can get access to on the public table.

This way we can make an educated, informed decision.

Regards

 miamizsun wrote: 
She didn't ever misunderstand him; he just used her inability to answer questions in an articulate manner.  Being better in debate/interview than a campaigner on the street is a easy win for him. 

 callum wrote: 
callum, unfortunately this has become politicized. I'm not a fan of either party here in America (and that would include our central banking, the UN, the World Bank and the IMF).

I thought her understanding of the english language was very good.

What would lead you to believe she misunderstood him?

Regards

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up...



Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change "spin" row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

"It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at," Dr Maslowski said. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."

Mr Gore's office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a "ballpark figure" several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal.

World leaders - with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard - are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal.

Meanwhile, five hours of negotiating time were lost yesterday when developing countries walked out in protest over the lack of progress on their demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations. The move underlined the distrust between rich and poor countries over the proposed legal framework for the deal.

Last night key elements of the proposed deal were unravelling. British officials said they were no longer confident that it would contain specific commitments from individual countries on payments to a global fund to help poor nations to adapt to climate change while the draft text on protecting rainforests has also been weakened.

Even the long-term target of ending net deforestation by 2030 has been placed in square brackets, meaning that the date could be deferred. An international monitoring system to identify illegal logging is now described in the text as optional, where before it was compulsory. Negotiators are also unable to agree on a date for a global peak in greenhouse emissions.

Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. "This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics," Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

"You really don't need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic."

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski's six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

"Maslowski's work is very well respected, but he's a bit out on a limb," said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Maslowki, who works at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.

He added: "I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this," he said. "It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore's office."

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: "He's just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero."

 miamizsun wrote: 
Well, as far as I can tell he takes someone, interviews them in his language not, theirs and proceeds to patronise them and twist their words to suit his own ends.  Definitely then, a politician.


edit:  also, it should be said that not all Brits sound like they have 300 years of finest English breeding stuck up their asses and the resulting mess is making it hard to speak.  And that I'm in a bad mood and Lord Monkton will have to forgive me.

 miamizsun wrote: 

google him- he is a politician/journalist not a scientist- not that that makes someones point of view invalid but he is particularly barmy (could be inbreeding- the title is hereditary)