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DesktopCynic

Listed below are comments made by DesktopCynic between Sunday, 1st February 2009 and Thursday, 17th December 2009.

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COP15: Climate 'scepticism' and questions about sex 3:07pm on 17 Dec 2009 #159
You know, whether climate change is man made or natural is pretty much irrelevant. What actually matters is how we deal with it. In past ages, when local climate/weather patterns changed, animal populations (and in that I include early man) simply upped sticks and moved somewhere better. Animal migration has been with us since the earliest animals, human populations have always moved as environmental factors shifted.
But there are now well over 6.5 billion of us, predicted to be 9 (that's NINE) billion by mid century. My question is simple; where would you like us to move to?
Just about every square habitable inch is now covered in people. And more people, and more people, or the crops needed to feed them. And the numbers keep climbing. And every single one of them wants a job and a car and a house etc. just like us, so more resources, more CO2... You can probably see where I'm going with this?
We are seeing the beginings of this mass migration already with vast numbers of people on the move for environmental and economic reasons, and issues of war. Many if not most of these reasons trace back to disputes over resources, environmental degradation and water. (Think Sudan.) Glaciers are melting, rivers drying up, fresh water is getting scarcer, more people need it, crops fail, livestock dies.
Nine billion. Again....where shall we move?
COP15: Climate 'scepticism' and questions about sex 4:52pm on 15 Dec 2009 As a girly and a scientist (geology/geophysics - but not involved in climate science) I find this interesting; let me put my cards on the table to start with....climate change is real, happening and it's almost certainly far too late to do anything about it except be glad that you don't live in Bangladesh or the Maldives. This fits in with my general observations of middle aged white men in general - they are finding it extraordinarily hard to accept that they are no longer Masters of the Universe, but just Bit Players like the rest of us.
So dismissing the work of others - often girlies like me - is one way they try and keep a tenuous hold on their lost gender and racial superiority.
Get over yourselves guys, climb down and join the rest of the human race, and start working out how 9 billion people (forecast by mid century) are going to live with this changing world.
Caption Competition 9:13pm on 12 Mar 2009 Blimey! Your stable is even older than my school!
Apocalyptic nightmare 5:50pm on 12 Feb 2009 I guess at the end of the day, people can stay and defend their property if they really want to. It's a choice they make. But they certainly can't expect anyone else (firefighters) to put their own lives at risk attempting a rescue if it goes wrong, that's for sure. Personally I favor mandatory evacuation every time. It's simpler. One rule for everyone.

But you're right, these were unprecedented fires, beyond anything seen before.

We're supposed to be in our rainy season right now, so we all have our fingers crossed for good rains. If not, we'll be in the same boat as you guys.
Apocalyptic nightmare 01:44am on 12 Feb 2009 KaterinaGX.

I wasn't in any way meaning to suggest that you are 'country bumpkins' and I unreservedly apologise if I gave that impression. It certainly wasn't intended. Yes, there is research going on I'm sure.

I've just been sitting here on the internet for days watching this unfold - like many others I think in this part of the world who have witnessed forest fires close up - watching helplessly the huge distress, the quite dreadful loss of life and the terrible trauma and wondering why so many have died.

One of my acquaintances had her house burn down last summer here in California in a bush fire which flared up quite quickly, spreading rapidly through Eucalyptus and scrub. They were given 10 minutes to leave by the authorities. I don't think Stand and Defend even crossed their minds. But they weren't given the choice. They were ordered out. I'm just trying to contribute to the debate here....Should people be allowed to stay? Even if they want to?
Apocalyptic nightmare 9:22pm on 11 Feb 2009 Another thought.....natural disasters, fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami, drought etc have always occurred. They are part of the natural world, part of earth's constant regenerative processes - although arguably we are exacerbating at least some them such as fire and flood by bad management of natural resources.

But there are now just so many people, living often in such marginal areas, like river flood plains and desert margins, that when a disaster happens it automatically affects many more people than it would once have done.

In prehistory people (and animals) migrated from place to place. If the climate failed in one area, and crops failed and it became unlivable, they moved somewhere else. We see such migrations all through the history of the human race. But where can we go now that there are so many of us?

Arguably we are living in areas where we would be better off not living (and I count myself in that too.)
Apocalyptic nightmare 9:06pm on 11 Feb 2009 And our houses are wooden too.....
Apocalyptic nightmare 9:05pm on 11 Feb 2009 I'm not trying in any way to be clever or superior here, but I live in California. We are surrounded by eucalyptus trees too, imported in the 19th century, they have spread widely because our climate is so similar to Australia.

We have huge fires and loss of property too just like Australia, but hardly any deaths by comparison. 2008 was a bad fire summer in California, all over the state.

Why do we have so few deaths? What are we doing differently? Maybe there are lessons to be learned?

There was a fire about 3 miles from my home here last summer (luckily went the other way but people in my old house were evacuated.) A bunch of houses burned and a lot of livestock perished but there were no human deaths. And we too have a very strong environmental lobby.

If you live in the country, the fire service come around and order you to clear brush away from the house area, and then I think they issue mandatory evacuations when fires start.
Was Daschle irreplaceable? 5:28pm on 06 Feb 2009 Howard Dean MD seems the obvious choice. An effective governor, a doctor and a creative thinker. Possibly not quite the political animal Daschle was, but some of us actually believe health care should be above politics (foolish, eh?)
Attenborough on Darwin 04:16am on 01 Feb 2009 Will we get a chance to see this here in the US, on Discovery or BBC America? Please....!

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