Climate funds lack clarity
The international development charity Oxfam has a new report out asking some fundamental questions about climate finance.
If you recall, two different financial pledges emerged at the Copenhagen summit: "fast-start" money to the tune of $30bn over the three-year period 2010-2012, and the much larger amount of about $100bn per year by 2020.
Both sums are supposed to be raised in and by industrialised nations, and made available to their poorer counterparts - to help curtail their greenhouse gas emissions, and to help them adapt to impacts of climate change.
Estimates of the true costs of these changes in the developing world vary significantly, and it's worth recalling that neither figure emerged from genuine negotiations - both were floated well ahead of time by western leaders, and changed not a jot as Copenhagen proceeded - so whether the sums are enough is one of the issues that Oxfam doesn't want us to lose sight of.
The other issues that it flags up are ones that in principle should be easier to answer, but which right now are about as murky as the Gulf of Mexico.
Is the money new, or are western countries seeking to redirect existing aid budgets? Will any of it be offered as loans? How much will come from the public purse?
Underlying these is the most fundamental of all: will it actually materialise?
These questions are not easy to answer, largely because there is no single conduit for funds.
Donor governments insist that bilateral transfers of money can count towards the total; and as these contributions can be wrapped up as components of bigger projects (for example, as additional funds to flood-proof a school being built with aid money), there is obviously a lot of potential for figures to jump magically from one column of the ledger to another.
At the April session of the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) in Bonn, EU representatives announced that by June they would have a report on the table summarising and clarifying contributions from EU member states.
It's not happened, and the idea now is to bring it out by the end of the year. So we will be one-third of the way through the "fast-start" period before we discover whether the EU is actually making good on its part of the $30bn pledge, and whether any uncomfortable questions hang over the raising and disbursement of the funds.
Given their domestic political difficulties, clarity from the other two major promisers of money - Japan and the US - is in even shorter supply.
Oxfam flags up a couple of other specifics. Some governments, it relates, are keen that money transferred through the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should count towards the bigger long-term target of $100bn per year.
CDM money is spent on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, certainly. But the reductions accrue to the western countries that are paying for the reductions - so allowing this as a contribution to meeting the Copenhagen pledges would be a clear case of double counting.
Secondly, some governments are apparently arguing that some of the $100bn should be proffered as loans, not as a transfer of funds.
As Oxfam points out:
"Climate finance is not aid. It is not an act of charity, or an expression of solidarity with poor countries, but a legal obligation under the UNFCCC."
The outcome of last week's Climate and Forest Conference in Oslo both illustrated how some governments are attempting to move forward, and highlighted some of the obstacles that encumber the process.
The Norwegian and Indonesian governments agreed a deal that on the surface at least enshrines accountability on both sides.
Indonesia agrees to halt deforestation for two years: Norway agrees to hand over $1bn if it does so, and will demand evidence before it parts with the cash. As part of the mechanism, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says he will "personally monitor" the forestry sector.
So far, so clear.
The conference also trumpeted the news that western countries had upped the sum they were pledging to combat deforestation in 2010-12, from the $3.5bn announced in Copenhagen to $4bn.
What we don't know is whether the extra half billion is additional money, or whether it comes from the overall $30bn pot.
Given the overall lack of transparency that Oxfam and others are flagging up, my bet is that no-one could tell us.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~51~RS~)
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Not a penny.
Not a penny.
Not a penny.
Nothing should be given to any of these corrupt beggars unless it's possible to look over their shoulders at what they're doing with it.
And get something worthwhile back!!!!
Also Oxfam is getting too big for it's boots.
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Funds??? its hard to give it if you are one the corrupt in government...
Those corrupt i don't know how they handle this things many people suffer from calamity they didn't care!!!
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These corrupt third world countries will believe in anything if they think stupid western governments will give them money. That's why they sign up to CAGW. I don't want my taxes to go to corrupt governments to solve a problem which doesn't exist (except in the minds of gullible politicians and those with a vested interest in keeping the scam going).
There are far better things to do with whatever money western governments have taken from their stricken taxpayers than to give it to corrupt governments. What about solving health problems and education?
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Climate funds lack clarity because lack of transparency serves capitalism. The situation is almost like a "spin" game – how to avoid prividing money towards claimate change and yet come across as a good guy supporting climate change.
The problem is really this (and I don’t think that many countries, or maybe no country at all) perceives the true situation:
If the capitalist countries do not address claimate change - specfically, seriously, financially - climate change will throttle capitalism onto death.
History repeats itself. Feudalism went with : liberté, egalité, fraternité! The time for revolution had come. "Let them eat cake!" was no longer good enough.
Climate change will bring social upheaval. A little example - A father cannot, will not, teach his son to grow crops, if the fields have been made infertile by genetically-engineered seeds, if the people have been made sick genetically-engineered crops. Genetically-engineered products are bad for people, bad for the soil and bad for any country's future.
Cultural ages come and cultural ages go: feudalism went, replaced by plutocracy. Plutocracy is what we have now - rule by the rich, the elite. Maybe one day we will evlove into true democracy.
But one thing for sure, when people are starving, suffering, when they have nothing left to live for, they can become most radical, most dangerous, most terrifying.
It’s not underdeveloped countries that made the claimate problem; they did not create most of the stuff that needs changing. So why is the west trying to help (with extremely limited success) underdeveloped countries? Has the west not done enough damage to underdeveloped with its mining, drilling, one crop IMF austerity programs?
The west now chooses to help with "cap and trade”. Cap and trade allows rich countries to fly free - carry on as usual - damage our planet.
It’s the developed plutocracies (There are no true democracies!) that are having real trouble with climate change.
e.g. What has the United States done? Each and every climate change bill get stuck somewhere in its multi-layered, "democratic" structure. What has the United States really done? Dropped bombs and drones – for the good of climate change? The United States has only considered a capitalist solution to a capitalist-created climate problem – a carbon market, like the stock market. Oh great - Let’s trade it! Let's bet on it.l It's the American way!
The United States says that temperature change is not really a problem. People adjust. Right! And what they adjust is their air-conditioners and the size of their swimming pools.
What about the fuel that runs these tools of cooling? Do they run on air? Where does one take an old air-conditioner when it’s no more good…or do we just ship them to some poor, underdeveloped country to scavage for parts that will likely make them sick, or better still dump them offshore oceans - as was done in Somalia.
Personally, I feel that claimate change may be the factor that breaks the back of capitalism.
More and more people will are witnessing that humankind must work with Mother Nature before Mother Nature upheaves the whole lot of us. When this more eco-friendly change does come, can you invision its arrival with capitalism…(Stop laughing!) or do you envision its arrival with socialism, working together, care, compassion?
Personally, I’m sick of capitalism. Its greed. Its destruction. Its throw-away mentality, including human lives.
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4. BluesBerry wrote:
'Climate funds lack clarity because lack of transparency serves capitalism.'
Bluesberry.
If your post isn't a complete send-up and if you believe any of this drivel I suggest you take a cool pill and sit in a darkened room for a bit.
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How much? Not a chance people are not going to put up with this, the likes of Oxfam would do a lot better if they just shut up. Joe public is sick and tired of this scam and sees completely through it. These NGO organisations are stepping way out of line there is a recently published book about the corruption and behaviour of these people I'll find a link, it appears they are the source of the problem. Lets face it they are an industry.
#$ Blueberry I am sure North Korea will welcome you with open arms into their country of socialist paradise, just send us a blog post to say you arrived safely. Oh! no computers, electricity, sorry no food either.
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4. At 1:44pm on 31 May 2010, BluesBerry wrote:
"Personally, I’m sick of capitalism. Its greed. Its destruction. Its throw-away mentality, including human lives."
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Concur!
From this morning's Globe and Mail newspaper - Canada:
Africa poised to give birth to new nation, South Sudan
by Geoffrey York, May 31, 2010
excerpt ca Berlin Conference (1884/85) - where our colonial governments carved up Africa:
“We have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where they were,” British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury admitted as the colonial powers grabbed as much as they could."
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Has much really changed since the Berlin Conference?
Yes and No - answers obvious to everyone I think.
This thread - what is it really about if not the true intentions of international affairs - geopolitics as practiced - Business as Usual.
Are we going to be able to change business as usual in time?
And who exactly is going to change it?
Are we talking grass-roots revolution?
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Herman Daly, ecological economist:
"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation."
===========================
Charles DeGaulle:
"Bred on imperatives, the military temperament is astonished by the number of pretenses in which the statesman has to indulge, The terrible simplicities of war are in strong contrast to the devious methods demanded by the art of government."
- "American Caesar," chapter on the Korean War - Douglas MacArthur biography.
=========================
Greece - NOW:
The International Monetary Fund, a strongman of globalization, dominated by the United States, wants Greece to derugulate and to increase productivity.
And yet, if we think that there is an environmental, ecological and human catastrophe in the making - a "PERFECT STORM,";
then what we need is more regulation of our dysfunctional economic system and less production of all that is unnecessary.
To reduce quantitatively our global footprint -
To return to the basics.
Hence the job worries?
What will we all do - we all (nearly) work producing unnecessary 'stuff.'
That's the 'crux,' as a mountaineer might put it.
Well, maybe we'll all have to learn first what is truly necessary -
And then change jobs and work at that.
- Manysummits -
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5. At 3:50pm on 31 May 2010, DrBrianS wrote:
4. BluesBerry wrote:
'Climate funds lack clarity because lack of transparency serves capitalism.'
Bluesberry.
If your post isn't a complete send-up and if you believe any of this drivel I suggest you take a cool pill and sit in a darkened room for a bit.
================================
This is yet another personal attack, and I request an apology from Dr. BrianS.
I would suggest that all such personal attacks cease, and that the moderators and the BBC consider such personal attacks as meriting censure, perhaps publicly - on this very weblog.
Transparency urged - do it right on this page - as an interdiction in off-color, the way Richard Black does when he inserts a comment.
- Manysummits -
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THE CHANGING FACE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT
Posted on 30 May 2010 by Calgary Beacon.
http://www.calgarybeacon.com/2010/05/the-changing-face-of-the-environmental-movement/
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Here is an interesting article sent to me by a friend.
It posits the following, if I read it aright:
Copenhagen was a failure for many enviros.
Many are switching to the prevention of environmental destruction rather than focusing on climate change and global warming.
The article wonders if this is wise?
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The Hartwell Paper is a step further along - arguing, if I read it aright, that humanity must be our first concern - helping the worst off now.
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There is a way of thinking which suggests that the need to help others is indicative of a malaise in one's own soul.
There is some truth here - but it may also be that seeking to help is a natural human trait.
But I do think that the Greek philosopher was mostly correct when he said:
"Man is the measure of all things." (Protagoras)
Try as we might, we are but one strand in the web of life.
If we do what is truly right for us - we might inadvertently, as it were, end up doing what is right for others, for the planet, for the climate, etc...
Therefore:
Homo Sapiens sapiens - heal thyself.
- Manysummits -
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\\\ Cutting to the Chase - How Much Money? ///
Lester Brown, author of "Plan B 4.0," argues that ~ $187 Billion (American) per year can do the trick.
If memory serves, the Stern analysis is somewhere in that ballpark, say $500 Billion (UK currency?) per year. And also makes the case that this is sound economically, as the costs if we wait will only increase, until we finally find ourselves overwhelmed.
The principal is key I think. The details are effectively unknowable.
But we must begin to ramp up our response - no matter the detail.
- Manysummits -
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Kambishigh @6 is flippant.
In fact North and South Korea are still technically at war since 1950, never having signed a peace treaty.
The United States is entirely in charge of South Korea's military, and maintains bases there.
As I said in my post #7 re colonialism - What has changed?
- Manysummits -
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Manysummits
"Man is the measure of all things." (Protagoras)
You really need the whole quote, and what did Plato say?
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Remember in the last blog when I was accused of being 'boorish' and ill mannered for daring to suggest that the climate change agenda had at its root the redistribution of wealth?
How boorish of Oxfam to suggest that wealthy nations should be giving money away to poor nations! How ill mannered of them to suggest that the poor nations can't meet their climate obligations on their own!
Ah, he who laughs last, laughs longest.
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Stay comfortable everyone -- just keep posting "scam scam scam" until everyone else believe you. It will work.
Actually, Jim Hansen -- the scientist who appreciates the seriousness of the climate problem more than any other -- would agree with you: he also thinks that cap'n'trade is a scam. Equitable, transparent, and strasighforward "Fee and Dividend"? Not as long as governments continue to lie to us with promises of 80% cuts by 2050 that cannot possibly come to pass w/o ditching coal. Period.
Richard: when will you be covering the march towards coal: in the UK, the US, China, and globally? According to Jim Hansen, that is where efforts must be focused (and there is a bunch of other reasons that we should get off the mostly dirty and polluting fossil fuel).
P.S. Harrabin's Notes (BBC News): "Surveys show that many people don't believe the truths of scientific orthodoxy anymore and prefer to seek their "facts" in the blogosphere where it's easier to get insouciant endorsement of high-consumption western lifestyles."
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"A little example - A father cannot, will not, teach his son to grow crops, if the fields have been made infertile by genetically-engineered seeds, if the people have been made sick genetically-engineered crops. Genetically-engineered products are bad for people, bad for the soil and bad for any country's future."
Pure waffle.
You offer no scientific evidence to back any of these outrageous claims.
Not only that, all the food you eat has been genetically engineered. All of it. Centuries of animal husbandry and and crop husbandry to produce bigger animals, more milk and better harvests are nothing more than crude genetic engineering.
Remember that the next time you go on a rant about the evils of the west.
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\\\ Opinion ///
I am advancing on two fronts.
My lifestyle - a sort of mountaineering 'believer,' is at the most personal level. I have radically changed my own lifestyle, many years ago, 1994 to be exact, and with one lapse back into the oil patch for two and a half years, I have continued to withhold my services as a geologist from the oil business, and bit by bit - to change in other ways too.
As a global thinker, I support the institutions which seem to me most valuable.
The United Nations is number one. Closer to home, public transportation, dense housing developments, community values, public libraries, etc...
Between the grass-roots revolutionary and the believer in institutions of highest 'quality,' it is hoped that some middle ground may emerge where the majority can meet in mutual respect, if not complete agreement.
More direct involvement politically is probably necessary.
- Manysummits -
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Oxfam needs lots of money to pay their executive officers. Transparency is not a part of AGW philosophy.
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Oxfam....
It is a huge shame that Oxfam has moved so far away from its original aims and become just another corporate company, many of Oxfams objectivies are very worthwhile, however, it like the BBC has strayed into areas that it has no right to be.
It should also be noted that on top of the 20,000 volunteers, Oxfam GB has over 5995 employees and was voted one of the best UK companies to work for, one of the main areas that it scored high was its high salaries!!.
Oxfam International has been forced to issue apologies for continuing to get involved in politial issues which have nothing to do with its humanitarian mission statement.
So with all this in mind, I have a question for Richard...Why are you allowing such a political NGO free propaganda on this license fee funded website?.
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When a man writes - I think he reveals his soul:
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14. At 5:00pm on 31 May 2010, Brunnen_G wrote:
Remember in the last blog when I was accused of being 'boorish' and ill mannered for daring to suggest that the climate change agenda had at its root the redistribution of wealth?
How boorish of Oxfam to suggest that wealthy nations should be giving money away to poor nations! How ill mannered of them to suggest that the poor nations can't meet their climate obligations on their own!
Ah, he who laughs last, laughs longest.
========================================
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
- Matthew 19:24
One of the tribal Arabs named Gasim (I. S. Johar) interprets Lawrence's kindness as a good omen: "They will be lucky for you. Allah favors the compassionate."
- The movie "Lawrence of Arabia"
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I am neither a practicing Christian nor Moslem.
But most of the world is religious.
Perhaps a 'back to the basics' approach will necessarily have to include the believers in this world.
- Manysummits -
PS:
And you were not accused of being boorish for the reason you cite - I should know, for it was I who accused you. It was your personal insult.
In this Global Commons as I envision it - a tribal council - opinions and facts are welcome - as are passion and cold logic.
I don't think personal insult is helpful.
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Well, there is a sound and practical way to assure that the funds for climate mitigation will materialize.
It's to realize that making the earth sustainable forces a choice to arrive at "peak money" by some means other than bankrupting all the world's economies. The one available choice, as Keynes even foresaw, is at natural physical system climax for those with financial savings greater than their needs to stop using their investment returns to multiply their investment earnings.
That would be the way to relieve the growth imperative whenever it seems wise not to have one, as when growing incomes for the physical economy are no longer materializing. It amounts to our natural growth system's natural "change of life", to switch from immature to mature growth when needed.
If returns on investments are not used to multiply, it directly means investment earnings would all end up being allocated to support the non-monetary values that people hold, i.e. spent on something worthwhile. It turns the "giant pool of money" into an "endowment of the whole", in fact.
It's just a basic little piece of systems physics that's never been hidden from sight.
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\\\ Opinion ///
This is the only geo-engineering idea of which I approve.
Unlike the subject of this thread, there is no lack of transparency, or cloudiness of purpose - and it is fair, in that all peoples benefit from reduced CO2.
Klaus Lackner is the 'father' of this idea, as I understand it, and Wallace Broeker an early 'convert,' who put Klaus and Gary Comer together -
Which is why I call the synthetic trees - 'Wally Trees.'
==============================
Washing Carbon Out Of The Air ( Preview )
Machines could absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, slowing or even reversing its rise and reducing global warming
By Klaus S. Lackner
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=washing-carbon-out-of-the-air
- Manysummits -
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Oxfam and Climate Change (Which I assume here to be restricted to Anthropogenic Global Warming)
Oxfam was founded in 1942 to relieve famine, but has moved on to the alleviation of the causes of famine.
The second element of its purpose brings it into contact and conflict with the Climate Change debate. When the climate changes sometimes people starve - however, it seems to me, the big mistake of Oxfam is to move too close to the AGW camp.
Famine is created by man either by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or through the misallocation of available resources. There are a whole host of areas that Oxfam needs to enter to work towards its aims for example a given food or water resource can provide sustenance for a given population - hence the rational management of reproduction etc.. Another problem it encounters is borders artificially created by man that prevent people moving to where there is food and water. A further problem is that of fair distribution of the available resources. All of these matters are intensely political.
My position is that from a scientific standpoint that AGW is unproven and that there are sounder and far better mechanisms that can and do better explain climate change. The main element of the climate change debate (that I share) is that it is the best thing to do to strive to make as efficient as possible, and as fair as possible, use of energy be it from fossil fuels or renewables. This inevitably brings Oxfam into conflict with the USA and the developed World who are energy gluttons at the expense of the poor. This is the fight to wage I think, and it is an error for Oxfam to tie itself to the apron strings of the AGW religion as it is my scientific view that AGW is entirely unsound and highly improbable. If Oxfam pursues that presently fashionable path it has a hight probability of damaging its aims, which I support (the aims that is, not the damage!).
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Maybe some of the money should be spent on sorting out the mess climate science has got itself into. It hasn't improved since Climategate exposed the shenanigans at the heart of it.
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It's called a 'tribute empire.'
That's what we have in the Koreas, and elsewhere:
If one seeks transparency and clear thinking, then 20/20 hindsight will help, whether it be OXfam or geo-politics:
========================
NORTH KOREA STRIKES BACK
May 31, 2010
- Eric Margolis
http://ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/north-korea-strikes-back.aspx
- Manysummits -
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#20, manysummits comment
Once again you deliver a thinly veiled insult, wrapped in waffle and served on a bed of refusal to answer the issue raised by my point in comment #16.
The issue, in case you missed it, was your lack of scientific foundation for your fear of GM food.
Care to answer?
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Brunnen_G #26:
In this case - yes.
First, you have the wrong person. I never mentioned GM food - the cut and paste in your #16 is from BluesBerry #4 as follows:
Climate change will bring social upheaval. A little example - A father cannot, will not, teach his son to grow crops, if the fields have been made infertile by genetically-engineered seeds, if the people have been made sick genetically-engineered crops. Genetically-engineered products are bad for people, bad for the soil and bad for any country's future.
==============
Second, I'll accept your apology in advance.
Third - I don't like GM foods, for a variety of reasons.
Fourth - I have no interest is discussing them with you.
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This sums it all up - the Anything Goes attitude that is going to wreck our planet. Entertain yourselves for 3 minutes with this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1sIE1yb5Lc
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#26 Brunnen_G
In this comment thread I think you'll find that was BluesBerry...
However, we all have a fear of the unknown and the unknowable, which the long term effects of GM are.
Manysummits musings, and his interpretations of his studies only seem to be based on this fear, for what can be observed, what can be measured, here and now is not unknown or unknowable. We are continuously measuring and reporting the deterioration of our environment and that of the other creatures living on earth.
I believe that the likes of he and I see try to see little further and possibly a little clearer. He like me can see many things wrong with the human world and the natural planet and that we are not moving to put them right fast enough.
Personally I believe that the collapse of our financial system will play a large part in the brewing "perfect storm" that humans are creating. I think / hope that its destruction will demonstrate clearly to all populations (for they will all be affected) the insignificance of the money systems we have also created literally from thin air. I watch the financial news as much as the environmental news:
The USA is in the thrall of the Money systems for 11,000,000,000,000 USD
The EU/IMF has just lent/guaranteed 1,500,000,000,000 USD
The UK owes 1,500,000,000,000 USD.
We are required (possibly) to donate a further 384,000,000,000 USD to the EU.
Where do you think this is leading?
P.S. All these Trillions of Dollars of debt can't fix a hole in a pipe on the sea floor...
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To Richard Black re this thread:
People's Climate Stewardship Act
- by James Hansen, April 25, 2010, National Mall, Washington, D.C.
"It's time to take back Earth Day.
Some of our best friends have become the planet's worst enemies.
The climate and energy bills in Congress were designed by big banks and
fat-cat environmental organizations that have lost touch with the people and nature."
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ (the document itself is a 'pdf')
======================
I don't know which organizations Dr. Hansen was referring to?
Nor do I know much about Oxfam.
But I thought you might like to see James Hansen's views.
- Manysummits -
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To Robert Lucien re Artificial Intelligence last thread:
243. At 9:24pm on 30 May 2010, Robert Lucien wrote:
#232 Manysummits, I'm afraid my AI research basically came to an end in 2002 for a whole heap of reasons. At the end of the day AI wrongly implemented could be about the most dangerous technology ever invented and without millions of dollars there was no way to do it properly or safely. Besides I did get other things out of it that have led in other areas maybe to something even bigger. :) That's why I am now focused more on physics and ecology and other things.
=====================
In the June 2010 Scientific American there is an article on AI, and one of the contributors (Will Wright, p45), appears to share your views.
Thought you might be interested.
- Manysummits -
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"but it's against the law!" gasps OxFam like a priggish schoolboy catching some older boys smoking.
Laws don't apply to governments, you need a powerful authority to uphold the law, and that is meaningless when you scale things up to international politics.
Laws are used to control the weaker, but it's optional to be controlled by them when you're strong.
Such schemes as referred to in this article are doomed to failure, what is needed is new technology and a powerful economic incentive to switch to renewable energy. The smaller countries will need to DESIRE to be green, greed and green have to go hand in hand, otherwise it's against human nature and therefore either deliberately misleading or pitifully naive.
Also I think the article needs to make much more use of the term "flagging up", it's always better to include meaningless meeting-room-speak rather than use real words.
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Damn, looks like I got the wrong waffler this time.
Mea culpa.
Your styles of rambling off topic and pushing a hippy agenda are so similar I got mixed up, humble apologies indeed.
As to your fourth, no, I somehow didn't think you, or BluesBerry for that matter, would. Big on rhetoric, small on meaningful answers.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Brunnen_G #16.
"Not only that, all the food you eat has been genetically engineered. All of it. Centuries of animal husbandry and and crop husbandry to produce bigger animals, more milk and better harvests are nothing more than crude genetic engineering."
tosh, seems you're confusing 'genetic modification' with 'selective breeding'.
true, people have crossbred different species of animals (and plants) for centuries to improve their qualities but GM is something else altogether.
for instance:
"..GM wheat lines are being tested in the release trial. The transferred genes come from barley and broad beans.."
In sheep transgenic for a sheep insulin-like growth factor .. driven by a mouse keratin promoter..
Pharming is the production of pharmaceutical human proteins in transgenic farm animals.
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phil henshaw #21.
interesting post.
"..for those with financial savings greater than their needs to stop using their investment returns to multiply their investment earnings. ... If returns on investments are not used to multiply, it directly means investment earnings would all end up being allocated to support the non-monetary values that people hold.."
are you advocating restrictions on 'investment vehicles', or on interest rates? how should legislation be shaped to achieve these aims?
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John_from_Hendon #23.
"Another problem it encounters is borders artificially created by man that prevent people moving to where there is food and water. A further problem is that of fair distribution of the available resources. All of these matters are intensely political."
hear, hear.
borders also facilitate the waging of wars and xenophobic reactions; on an Earth without nation states there'd be no immigration issues -- what a loss to the 'Daily Mail' et al. ;)
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ChangEngland #29.
"The USA is in the thrall of the Money systems for 11,000,000,000,000 USD"
precisely, if only Standard & Poor's and the IMF were as 'hard' on the US of A as they are on Greece and Spain.
but then, Greece and Spain have (relatively) people friendly administrations.
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Chris #32.
"Laws don't apply to governments, you need a powerful authority to uphold the law, and that is meaningless when you scale things up to international politics.
Laws are used to control the weaker, but it's optional to be controlled by them when you're strong.
Such schemes as referred to in this article are doomed to failure, what is needed is new technology and a powerful economic incentive to switch to renewable energy."
you too make a good case for a world without nation states; "what is needed", first and foremost, is a reformed United Nations which can live up to its name and deliver a uniform body of law that applies to all humans on Earth equally.
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Richard Black.
re. deforestation.
the Guardian article (you linked to) states: "Growing populations, agriculture and the timber industry have all reduced tropical forests from the Amazon to Indonesia, where it has become more profitable to cut down natural forests."
modern agriculture is all about large-scale monocultures because this allows for the use of machinery; machines are used to replace manual labour which is typically the largest cost factor in a business, in other words, the forests are sacrificed to support the creation of profitable businesses.
a growing population will, inevitably, use more wood but I think that each and every one of us needs to take responsibility for how we use it.
interestingly, the UK could make a big difference:
according to Greenpeace the "..UK is currently the largest importer of illegal tropical timber in Europe, with approximately 60% of all UK tropical timber imports coming from illegal logging operations in some of the world's most important rainforests, including the Amazon, Indonesia and central Africa" and "Central Government contracts account for 15% of UK timber use, and the public sector as a whole accounts for 40 per cent".
and significant reductions in CO2 emissions would result too, as (again) the Guardian points out, deforestation and "..forest degradation wipes away an area the size of England each year and is responsible for 17% of global carbon emissions – more than that made by the world's cars, trains and planes combined, according to UN data"
note to the moderators: I have checked both the Guardian and the Greenpeace pages, there are NO copyright restrictions, in fact both pages have buttons to facilitate emailing these articles.
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#40 cont'd.
oops, the link to the Greenpeace page referred to got lost on reposting, here it is:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/ucatt-and-greenpeace-join-forces-to-green-timber-procurement
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Very wide and varied debate going on here. My comments are just on the climate front. I am a corporate adviser in this space so see it from the private corporate point of view. First a personal comment.
I am not a scientist but in my lifetime I have seen weather patterns shift so that gives me enough cause for concern to consider what is the appropriate response. I see directing some capital to create a less carbon intensive economy more like an insurance policy. There is a chance, perhaps small or large depending on your view, that we are causing damage/suffering for future generations. Just like life insurance I want some protection against that risk and willing to pay my 'earth-life' insurance premium.
That said, people are right that there is a lot of corruption potential out there in the developing economies. Thats not a reason to give up but be a little smarter. The clean development mechanism to direct money from the climate funds to carbon reduction has some merits (including auditing of results). Tighten the regulation with more effective professional monitoring just like we have for companies financial results. If the basic rules are robust you will see more and more private firms engage in creating the solution. Human ingenuity and a taste for profit would ensure the solution gets more and more improved over time.
The other reality is that we are still in global financial distress (always easier for the masses to consider charity/global issues when in good times). Countries also are afraid to lose competitive advantage (= lost tax revenue). This all makes creating rules and momentum just a tad difficult.
But the bottom line is that when we tighten our belts, stop paying that life insurance etc. we are all increasing our risk and that of the kids. I for one advocate paying the insurance premium - its probably less than 1% of your income and the reality is it will create jobs both at home and abroad
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I'm guessing that the photos with this article are supposed to have something to do with The Warming.
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@ 43- pretty much :-)
payment for stopping deforesstaion- brilliant idea. a right #### to police- but i love that idea. Lets hope it works and that it can be rolled out further to cover rainforests worldwide.
A brief comment on 'harbains notes' that someone linked. You're aware that linking an opinion piece (a highly biased one at that) to support your arguments is a bit daft.
as for the oxfam and funding points.
my obvious views on the issue aside, i am genuinley worried about the scope for corruption in the sums of monies available. this is a highly fluid, highly unregulated and positively infantile (in age) system thats being set up. it's all being done as a rush-job, and money, vast amounts of it WILL go missing.
I'd urge more caution. If we really have to go down this incredibly stupid road, we should at least make sure the monies go where they're supposed to.
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#32 Chris wrote:
"Laws don't apply to governments, you need a powerful authority to uphold the law, and that is meaningless when you scale things up to international politics."
That's very true -- a set of rules don't count as "law" unless they are legitimized by a real legislature and backed up by consistently-applied sanctions.
The question remains: Why do people so often refer to the fiction of "International Law" as if it had an even greater legitimacy than the law of the land in which they live?
I can only suggest that people are used to thinking of morality itself as a "higher law". This is a terrible way of thinking about morality, by the way, but it's the way of religious tradition. To many people, "International Law" seems "higher" than ordinary law, and so looks like "morality itself" to them.
That would explain why when people want to say the war in Iraq was immoral, they usually talk about "this illegal war". But obviously, law and morality are completely different things.
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28. At 11:30pm on 31 May 2010, Nick Skeens wrote:
This sums it all up - the Anything Goes attitude that is going to wreck our planet. Entertain yourselves for 3 minutes with this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1sIE1yb5Lc
=================================
Thank you Nick - this video does sum things up, doesn't it!
- Manysummits -
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@manysummits #8
I would suggest that all such personal attacks cease, and that the moderators and the BBC consider such personal attacks as meriting censure, perhaps publicly - on this very weblog.
This more pot / kettle / black situation, manysummits
Aren't you the one that accuse sceptics of being delusional and of having personality disorders in past threads? I could look up your posts for you if you have forgotten
Look in the mirror, manysummits
/Mango
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Chris at #32 and Bowman at #45
Chris wrote (and Bowman said he agreed) that:
"Laws don't apply to governments, you need a powerful authority to uphold the law, and that is meaningless when you scale things up to international politics."
I disagree. Laws do apply to governments. You are conflating difficulties or flaws in enforcement, with the existence of obligations under law.
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$100bn a year ????
I say not a penny to the fabulously wealthy leaders of the so called 'poor' nations.
Whilst tens of thousands of people are being put out of work by the new westminster government to save money, we should be stopping ALL foreign aid, not increasing it.
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To jr4412 #40 & 41:
"A staggering 80% of the world's original ancient forests have already been destroyed or degraded. Much of what remains is under threat from illegal and destructive logging."
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/ucatt-and-greenpeace-join-forces-to-green-timber-procurement
========================================
Greenpeace is doing good work - and always has.
The forestry sections in both Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0 and Al Gore's "Our Choice" detail the tremendous benefits of using 'best practice' methods in true forestry.
The type of forestry we appear to have been supporting through our taxes (forestry services in various countries, including Canada), are little more than subsidies for the clear-cutting forestry industry - an unsustainable approach which we have been blithely 'watching' operate all these years.
Underacanoe is reading "Tree Spiker", by Mike Roselle, co-founder of 'Earth First!' Apparently it's quite the read.
I can't but help thinking that while Greenpeace and Mike Roselle have somehow seen so clearly so long ago - what in the world was I thinking - and doing?
- Manysummits -
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47. At 09:22am on 01 Jun 2010, MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
@manysummits #8
I would suggest that all such personal attacks cease, and that the moderators and the BBC consider such personal attacks as meriting censure, perhaps publicly - on this very weblog.
This more pot / kettle / black situation, manysummits
Aren't you the one that accuse sceptics of being delusional and of having personality disorders in past threads? I could look up your posts for you if you have forgotten
Look in the mirror, manysummits
/Mango
=================================
I'm willing to change if that's what it takes.
- Manysummits -
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Yeah - great. I'm gonna send a cheque just as soon as I get my compo from the Vikings.
And the Romans - they owe me.
And the Normans - I need compensation from them for what they did.
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42. At 06:07am on 01 Jun 2010, Fernando wrote:
"Very wide and varied debate going on here. My comments are just on the climate front. I am a corporate adviser in this space so see it from the private corporate point of view."
============================
On the climate front!
Did you follow the developments in Bolivia earlier this year, when the 'People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth' took place?
The dismantling of capitalism is being actively discussed.
It is possible that a reformed capitalism could be put to work for the good of all.
It is also possible that we could immediately dismantle all of our nuclear weapons.
But the reality of what is and what isn't going to happen - in a world completely dominated by money, effectively out of the control of what little government we have left - that is another matter.
- Manysummits -
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@manysummits #51
I'm willing to change if that's what it takes
- Manysummits -
in that case, manysummits, let me be the first to encourage and applaud you
/mango
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#48 simon-swede wrote:
"You are conflating difficulties or flaws in enforcement, with the existence of obligations under law."
Legal obligations are different from moral obligations, and I wonder what legal obligations to observe "international law" consist of?
The rules of Monopoly (the board game I mean) are observed more widely that the rules of international law, because people who play the game implicitly agree to abide by them. But who agreed to abide by the rules of international law? A few low-grade politicians at the UN? -- No wonder no one pays much attention!
It makes sense to speak of rules that are not generally complied with as long as there are consistently applied sanctions for non-compliance. But that just isn't the case with "international law". It's an abstraction too far.
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bowmanthebard #56.
"Legal obligations are different from moral obligations.."
perceptive, and irrelevant!!
from 'philosopher of science' to 'philosopher of international law' in next to no time, my my..
LOL
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#56 jr4412 wrote:
"perceptive"
Thanks!
"and irrelevant!!"
Huh?
If you look at general levels of compliance with international agreements such as the Kyoto accord, the Eurozone debt rules, etc., you would see that there is huge problem. Compliance with rules for which there are no effective sanctions is low. Where there is any compliance at all there is the "sanction" of international popularity. Countries that pride themselves on their "worthy image" internationally might be complying simply to maintain that image.
If an international agreement were signed to limit carbon emissions, and most countries complied with it, the few that didn't comply with it would have the non-compliance rewarded by being more economically competitive.
Personally, I think global warming would be great, but if you think it's bad, and that to limit it we need an international agreement that most countries comply with, I'd be kind of worried if I were you!
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bowmanthebard #57.
"If you look at general levels of compliance with international agreements such as the Kyoto accord, the Eurozone debt rules, etc., you would see that there is huge problem."
huge problem, agree.
however, as simon-swede (#48) points out, seems you are "..conflating difficulties or flaws in enforcement, with the existence of obligations under law."
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#58 jr4412 wrote:
however, as simon-swede (#48) points out, seems you are "..conflating difficulties or flaws in enforcement, with the existence of obligations under law."
But I ask again: What do these obligations consist of? In what sense do they "exist" at all, if not in the sanctions imposed for non-compliance?
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A couple of small points on this string.
I've always wondered what would happen if local authorities didn't obey EU directives on, say, recycling levels. It appears they could be fined. And if they refused to pay would the mayor be arrested by some sort of EU police? Answers on the back of an envelope please.
Also. The American government considers it answers first and foremost to the American people, not to the UN or any other international body. Quite right too I say and I only wish our government wasn't so craven.
Also. I still think that Oxfam is getting too big for it's boots.
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As I said some time ago, it would be more accurate for adaptation money to be called aid, it would be even more accurate to call it wealth redistribution. One thing that is often overlooked about wealth is that it is not a finite resource, one to be more fairly distributed, wealth is created by people, some people have been lucky enough to have natural resources on their door step but it is still down to people to make a go of it. Much of the west’s aid goes to Africa, much of Africa has plentiful resources yet its people show no interest in development, they are happy to swap there mining concessions with the Chinese for a new football stadium and to let the west snap up their best farm land to grow flowers. Africa is dependant on aid yet the west is skint and what aid Africa does get goes on yet more guns or into Swiss bank accounts, we cannot change Africa because we cannot change its people.
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Bowman at #55
"But who agreed to abide by the rules of international law? A few low-grade politicians at the UN?"
Ever heard of treaties - funny little bits of paper, but the nation states that sign on to them explicitly agree to their provisions.
Then you repeat again the mistake of conflating enforcement with existience of international law. By your weird logic, there are no real laws about parking or graffiti as there are many more examples of violations than successful sanctions enforced against those who break them.
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DrBrianS at #60
EU Member States are required to incorporate directives into their domestic law. So in the case you describe, any police that show up would be your friendly local Bobbies. I figure your imagination suffices to create the back of the envelope that this was written on.
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#62 simon-swede wrote:
"Ever heard of treaties - funny little bits of paper, but the nation states that sign on to them explicitly agree to their provisions."
In that situation, nation states add laws to their own statute books, so that the laws that are enforced are laws of the land. The government of the land enforces them, and creates the (legal) obligation to comply with them.
By the way, do you mean to imply that nation states that do NOT sign these treaties are NOT subject to international law?
"By your weird logic, there are no real laws about parking or graffiti as there are many more examples of violations than successful sanctions enforced against those who break them."
But parking (etc.) laws are (a) written down in statute books, and (b) are in fact quite consistently enforced. If it is a fact that there are more violations than actions taken against violations, that is something new that you have just introduced. I said that sanctions have to be "consistently" applied, not applied "more often than not".
If a law exists only on paper, and no one bothers to enforce it, I find it rather odd to say there's a legal obligation. Suppose I write down an arbitrary rule in my diary. No one reads it but me, and no one enforces it. How does that rule differ from a "law" that no one bothers to enforce?
Confusion of the law and morality is extremely common. I suspect you think international law generates MORAL obligations. Well maybe it does, but moral obligations are not legal obligations.
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#30 manysummits wrote: "It's time to take back Earth Day."
For once I agree with you.
We should give Earth Day back to the original screwballs who predicted our doom by ice and famine. They were far more amusing than the current screwballs predicting our doom by fire and rising seas.
The only problem is that many of them are the same people...
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist Earth Day 1970
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
- Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day 1970
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
- Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University Earth Day 1970
(Science by consensus strikes again!)
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist Earth Day 1970
Paul Ehrlich, Kenneth Watt and Denis Hayes. Aren't these the same people predicting catastrophic global warming now?
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Bowman at #64
You are confusing the process by how a State does about ensuring that it fulfils its part of the agreement (through incorporating provisions in its national laws) and the obligations created between states who are parties ot a treaty (which are province of international law).
Nation states that sign up to treaties do agree to be bound by them, and the obligations created exist betwen those parties only. However treaties are just one soure of international law.
Once again you are projecting if you you suspect that I think legal obligations are the same as moral obligations. Sorry, once again you are mistaken.
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#66 simon-swede wrote:
"treaties are just one soure of international law"
It seems to me that for the word 'law' to be appropriate, a rule has to be more than something written on a bit of paper. It has to be an integral part of an effective working system of law enforcement. I do not see much of that with many international treaties, and do not see it at all with anything less than a treaty.
If agreements are not enforced, or enforced so ineffectively that they exist in name only, I'm wondering how a "legal obligation" exists. In what sense is it any sort of "obligation"?
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As it is unclear if this is new monies or existing monies that will be designated for something else, it is difficult to make a judgement. An interesting point for me would be how this will eventually be associated with the ETS. If nations are paying other nations to prevent deforestation than can that country turn around and sell the "saved" forests as off-sets in the ETS? Because ETS is a program of governments and bankers, we will never know the truth.
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The wealth redistributionists saw AGW as the answer to all their prayers. When the case for warming began to collapse a few months ago they were widely expected to move on and hijack biodiversity loss, however to make people do what they are told requires a big fear, and the loss of frog and snail species is not frightening to most people therefore the redistributionists are having to stick with warming and hope that they can ride out the storm.
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65. At 1:07pm on 01 Jun 2010, Brunnen_G wrote:
#30 manysummits wrote: "It's time to take back Earth Day."
\\ No, that was James Hansen who said that. //
For once I agree with you.
We should give Earth Day back to the original screwballs who predicted our doom by ice and famine. They were far more amusing than the current screwballs predicting our doom by fire and rising seas.
\\ Defamatory comments on the character of men doing their best //
The only problem is that many of them are the same people...
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist Earth Day 1970
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
- Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day 1970
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
- Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University Earth Day 1970
(Science by consensus strikes again!)
\\ Brunnen_G: What are the statistics for starvation around the world?
Would you be so good as to cite your sources? //
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist Earth Day 1970
\\ Not familiar with this man Kenneth Watt.
According to Richard Alley, one of the world's pre-eminent glaciologists (see Wikipedia), Wallace Broecker is a "towering scientist."
Wallace, or Wally, is one of the deans of paleoclimatology (see Wikipedia). He likens our situation vis a vis global warming to that of someone poking a large and angry beast - in a very small cave.
He also wrote "The Glacial World according to Wally," a copy of which can apparently be found on the desks of most of the world's climatologists.
Wally believes that to understand climatology, you must first understand the Ice Ages.
Your comments strongly suggest that you, Brunnen_G, are lacking in that understanding. //
Paul Ehrlich, Kenneth Watt and Denis Hayes. Aren't these the same people predicting catastrophic global warming now?
\\ No, not that I know of, though as I have said I am unfamiliar with Kenneth Watt. Perhaps you could enlighten us? Who is Kenneth Watt?
Paul Ehrlich is of course not a climatologist, or meteorologist, or glaciologist. His speciality is population studies, if memory serves.
Dennis Hayes I am also unfamiliar with. //
=======================================
So what have we at the end of this long post?
You have attacked scientists both past and present, using defamatory language.
You have not provided background on these men to support your defamation.
And I don't think you know the first thing about Ice Ages or their scientifically probable causes, by the words you yourself have written.
But you have managed to waste a great deal of time, while the planet warms, and while millions die of our rapacious behavior and neglect, of our foot-dragging on promises made here in the civilized world (Millenium Development Goals for example).
I recommend "The Betrayal of Africa," by Gerald Caplan
- Manysummits -
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To jr4412
and others interested in the United Nations - and some hard numbers on how much global warming is likely to cost (Stern 2005; International Energy Agency)
============================
Article Highlights
* Climate change will undoubtedly affect the lives and lifestyles of nearly every person who inhabits the planet.
* But although climate change is a global issue, today's international institutions are incapable of managing such a complex and far-reaching problem.
* Thus, an international body must be established that will provide support for climate mitigation and adaptation strategies through financial incentives, regulations, and structures.
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/bringing-climate-change-global-governance
- Manysummits -
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@70
small comment "while the planet warms", yes- but not in the context you intend.
also- i think it was less a direct attack (if so it was a fairly banal one) and more a post to highlight how viewpoints can change, raapidly, with little to no-evidence. It's also show's how things can rapidly descend into a 'who can predict the worst scenario' game.
i would suggest you try not to read between the lines too much manysummits. not everything is an attack mate.
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Paul Ehrlich is the man you were lauding a few blogs ago for his work of the ozone hole.
Dennis Hayes, Founder of Earth Day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Hayes
If their predictions of mass starvation were correct, then why isn't the human population decreasing?
And actually, yeah, you DO know that Ehrlich now predicts global warming. You said so a few blogs ago. You even said he 'effectively apologised' for getting his prediction of global cooling wrong. Remember?
And I just don't believe that you don't know who Hayes and Watt are.
Frankly, you're being as slippery as they are. And with as much success.
OH, BTW, if you don't like me using 'defamatory comments' about idiots who predicted doom that failed to appear and are doing the same again, that's just tough.
I reserve praise for people who people who DESERVE it and likewise scorn.
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\\\ Opinion ///
You know, we keep defying gravity.
Being a former pilot and skydiver, and a present mountaineer, I am altogether familiar with gravity, and defying it.
The Green Revolution is another example. We have inadvertently leveraged ourselves even further to fossil fuels, and inadvertently, helped population to explode - and all with the best on intentions, on the part of many, and doubtless, to the enrichment, the fabulous enrichment, of a very few.
It is hard to keep one's balance in a world that is changing so rapidly.
- Manysummits -
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@manysummits #70
I recommend "The Betrayal of Africa," by Gerald Caplan - Manysummits -
Manysummits,
You’re a mountaineer, so I guess you would weigh up all the odds, options etc before you set off to climb a mountain that you haven’t climbed before. Based on that, I think you will agree that before we rush off trying to solve problems, we must first be as sure as we can be that there is a problem to solve. I know you are going to point to your heroes and tell us that so and so says CO2 is a problem, therefore we need to solve it, but is CO2 a real problem?
We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and causes warming, but the whole argument is about how much warming. We know that for every doubling of CO2, the temperature, all things being equal will rise by around 1C, so from 100ppm to 200ppm would cause 1C rise, as would 200 to 400 ppm etc. So to produce a rise of 3C from the present concentration of around 390ppm would mean, with no other factors, CO2 in the atmosphere would have to rise to over 3000ppm. And yet the IPCC would have us believe that a single doubling of CO2 would cause up to 6C rise in temperature so they think there must be something else that is amplifying the warming caused by CO2
So, there are other factors to take into account and, when all lumped together, it is called climate sensitivity.
Climate sensitivity is the real wildcard in the pack and something we don’t have is a definitive answer to. Models (and the IPCC) suggests climate sensitivity is high, whilst observational evidence suggest climate sensitivity is low (I know which evidence I would be more likely to accept!).
Could I recommend, again, that you google “climate sensitivity” and read as much as you can before climbing the mountain and leaping off the edge? If you do, please check the peer reviewed work from both sides of the debate, not just the side that reinforces your view?
/Mango
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Smiffie #61.
"Africa is dependant on aid yet the west is skint and what aid Africa does get goes on yet more guns or into Swiss bank accounts, we cannot change Africa because we cannot change its people."
yet, all the worst dictators and corrupt officials defend their behaviour in impeccable English, clipped Oxford accents and all. ever wonder why?
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Funny the way some people still imagine that wiki is a credible source on anything to do with this issue.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/23/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-hockey-stick-wars.aspx
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I'm a little dumbfounded here. Oxfam is studying the financial commitments of the Copenhagen summit...
Isnt Oxfam engaged in counting chickens from all the egg's laid at Copenhagen? The inertia of the political hopes invested in Copenhagen constantly amaze's me. It's like I'm being pecked at by a different DooDoo bird everyday here on the BBC.
But then again the amount of money is impressive. Even though it's imaginary. And who knows! With the swipe of pen that money could suddenly materialize out of thin air!
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manysummits #71.
re link.
"..a strengthened United Nations must be central to the new global compact."
reformed rather than 'strengthened' would be my preference.
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More news from The Lobby.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/05/hay-festival-climate-change-is-long.html
Monday, May 31, 2010
Hay festival: 'Climate change is a long struggle'
Global warming has always energised Hay audiences – but this year the mood is much more sober...
"Who knows? Everybody might be wrong," [James Lovelock] says. "I may be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out."
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79. At 8:08pm on 01 Jun 2010, jr4412 wrote:
manysummits #71.
"..a strengthened United Nations must be central to the new global compact."
reformed rather than 'strengthened' would be my preference. (jr4412)
=============================
Hello jr!
What do you have in mind?
How do you view the Millenium Development Goals?
- Manysummits -
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As has been noted, there is no large all encompassing binding multi-national agreement on the transfer of funds to developing countries for them to deal with Climate Change. One of the fundamental issues I have not seen discussed is who is going to determine the developing countries' priorities for the use of such funding. Ignoring for a moment the levels of corruption found in many of these countries, that fundamental question has to be answered and answered correctly.
There is currently no organization or mechanism set up to identify and prioritize what needs to be done. On one level it is an unanswerable question. How do you balance the need to reduce the flooding levels in Bangladesh vs. dealing with increase drought in sub-Sahara Africa? Given the uncertainties of the time-line and the climate change impacts and the locations of those impacts, attempts at analysis becomes increasingly futile.
My suspicion is that nations will continue to give aid to the countries where they are currently providing aid, and to additional countries where it is in their national interest to do so. Most of the aid will be currently budgeted dollars going to retargeted and relabeled projects at about the current levels with about the current distributions. Some developing countries will use the aid wisely to the benefit of their people, others will continue to build monuments of futility.
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"To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
- Manysummits -
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Smiffie at #69
"...they were widely expected to move on and hijack biodiversity loss"
By you, maybe!
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Bowman at #67
If you want to deny the existence of international law, go ahead. Once again, what you imagine is not what is.
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#89 simon-swede wrote:
"If you want to deny the existence of international law, go ahead. Once again, what you imagine is not what is."
But you're avoiding the issue: what creates the obligation of "international law". How does that obligation exist at all.
You keep getting personal instead of answering the question. If you can't answer the question, just be honest and admit it.
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Manysummits – Keep up the good work, you are doing a brilliant job.
Smiffie – one of the lobby.
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Bowman at #90
I'll be honest, I CAN answer the question. But I can't be bothered since you show no sign of listening to anyone else but yourself!
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Manysummits @85 makes a good point when he quotes Lester R. Brown asking “Should grain be used to fuel cars or feed people?”
It prompts the question whether we should forgo fuel for our cars and the many other things that make our lives comfortable and fulfilling in order to cram as many people as possible onto the planet, or whether it would be better to have less people but with a higher standard of living for all.
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mango @75
Where/what is the observational evidence that climate sensitivity is low? Again, it is important to remember that just about every credible climate scientist looking at this problem (and there have been a few) have stated a lower limit of no less than about 1.2C, a best guess of about 3C and a long tail stretching out to about 6C. This means that the science, as it stands, does not preclude the possibility of a HUGE sensitivity but it does preclude the possibility that sensitivity is as low as you say it is. For some reason, you fail to explain why feedbacks will have no effect. This is a contraversal view because it goes against what the vast majority of the field have demonstrated to be true. You have to qualify it with strong evidence, so where is this evidence?
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@ 93. good point
also, isn't it also a case of actually using the resources we have effectively?
correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't a shedload of perfectly good food get wasted world wide anyway?
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#92 simon-swede wrote:
"I'll be honest, I CAN answer the question. But I can't be bothered"
It's interesting how often you can be bothered to interject empty personal remarks in response to what I write.
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Returning to the actual theme of Richard's piece...
So-called "protected areas" now shelter 54% of the remaining forests of the Brazilian Amazon and it is estimated that these contain 56% of its forest carbon. There are three major categories of protected area in the Brazilian Amazon, with differing levels of forest protection (indigenous land, strictly protected, and sustainable use). It is estimated that the expansion of such areas in the Brazilian Amazon was responsible for 37% of the region's total reduction in deforestation between 2004 and 2006.
But this comes at a price. The Brazilian Amazon protected area network represents a "cost" of US$147 (± 53) billion (net present value) for Brazil in terms of forgone profits and investments needed for their consolidation. Thus the incentive to log is immense, even if it is recognised that the environmental damage would be considerable.
The Copenhagen accord recognised "the crucial role of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests" and "the need to provide positive incentives to such actions through the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus, to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries".
To those words need to be reflected by actual commitments of resources.
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#95 LabMunkey wrote:
"doesn't a shedload of perfectly good food get wasted world wide anyway?"
Widespread wastage of food is a sign of its affordability. Affordability is a good thing, as it saves lives, however much the wastage may disgust us on a visceral level.
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bowmanthebard #98.
"Widespread wastage of food is a sign of its affordability."
no, over-stocking.
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Does 'affordability' of food necessarily save lives or might it also damage health?
If food prices are so low that they contribute to over-indulgence then the affordability of food (especially 'junk' food) may actually be a health problem.
Obesity-related health problems certainly rack up expensive medical bills. For the USA, in 1998 the medical costs of obesity were estimated to be as high as $78.5 billion (with roughly half financed by Medicare and Medicaid). A study published in 2009 found that the increased prevalence of obesity in the United States is responsible for almost $40 billion of increased medical spending through 2006, including $7 billion in Medicare prescription drug costs. The authors estimated that the medical costs of obesity could have risen to $147 billion per year by 2008.
The reference for the 2009 paper is "Annual Medical Spending Attributable To Obesity: Payer-And Service-Specific Estimates" by Finkelstein et al, HEALTH AFFAIRS, vol. 28, no. 5 (2009): w822-w831.
But I reckon that's likely to be pretty unappetising fare for most... so for a more 'lively' perspective, you could always have a peek at the film "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" where a town nearly dooms itself via gluttony. As hamburgers, steaks and ice cream rain down, residents feast euphorically, oblivious to their expanding waistlines -- until a child succumbs to a food coma.
Yum, yum!
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bowmanthebard #98.
"Widespread wastage of food is a sign of its affordability."
No. The Green Revolution. Transport costs. Islington reaction against GM.
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The European Environment Agency (EEA) has released its greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory 1990-2008 report for the European Union. This indicates that the EU-27's emissions stood 11.3 % below their 1990 levels, while EU-15 achieved a reduction of 6.9 % compared to Kyoto base-year levels.
At the end of the summer 2010, the EEA will publish preliminary estimates for the 2009 total EU emissions. This will be followed in the autumn by more comprehensive reports analysing emission trends, policy effectiveness and progress towards meeting the Kyoto and other EU emission targets.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-union-greenhouse-gas-inventory-2010
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@bowmanthebard #98
Widespread wastage of food is a sign of its affordability.
I disagree, I think widespread wastage of food is a sign of greed. Yes, food is relatively cheap, but it doesn't mean we have to throw it away, does it?
/Mango
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@SR #98
Where/what is the observational evidence that climate sensitivity is low?
Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer. 2007. A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions. International Journal of Climatology.
Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705, doi:10.1029/2009GL039628. (Also updated in 2010);
Spencer, R.W., Braswell, W.D., Christy, J.R., Hnilo, J., 2007. Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L15707, doi:10.1029/2007/GL029698
Now I know you will say that so and so thinks the above are wrong, as I think you or others have said before, but as far as I know, these papers are still the best information we have based on observation and not modelling.
Again, it is important to remember that just about every credible climate scientist looking at this problem
Why the ad hom? Are you saying that only scientists who agree with AGW are credible and scientists who disagree are not credible? If so, do you base your opinion on what you have been told or have you read the papers and discovered the fatal flaws in them? Do you have evidence to show that only AGWer scientists are credible?
This means that the science, as it stands, does not preclude the possibility of a HUGE sensitivity but it does preclude the possibility that sensitivity is as low as you say it is.
At least we agree on this. I am not precluding the possibility that sensitivity may be high, but with the observational evidence we have, sensitivity appears to be low. Produce observational evidence, including the cloud effect, showing sensitivity to be high and I will change my mind, but to simply state sensitivity is high based on models, when we can't even model clouds effectively requires you to "qualify it with strong evidence, so where is this evidence?"
/Mango
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#100 simon-swede wrote:
"If food prices are so low that they contribute to over-indulgence then the affordability of food (especially 'junk' food) may actually be a health problem."
Of course the combination of affordability and gluttony is a health problem for us in the West. But affordable food is a life-saver for people who would otherwise not be able to afford it. There are still parts of the world where people eat mostly rice, and even a slight increase in meat intake can decide between survival and death (from malaria, for instance, whose survivability depends on general health).
Instead of reducing the affordability of food, we should be working on our own gluttony -- it's our failing, and others shouldn't have to pay for it.
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#103 MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
"I think widespread wastage of food is a sign of greed."
I'm not trying to exonerate people who buy too much food, just to point out that they wouldn't be buying so much if they had to work significantly longer to buy it. So yeah, let's all work on controlling our greed, but let's not do things that endanger the lives of poor people.
Another point is that "good" or "bad" food is highly contextual. What we call "junk food" would be a highly nutritious life-saver to someone who can only afford rice.
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Bowman at #106
Most definitions of "junk food" incorporate phrases like "low in essential nutrients" or "low nutritional value". Until your post, I have never seen "junk food" described as "highly nutritious".
"Highly nutritious" is not the same as "highly calorific".
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@104
I don't mean to be argumentative, but the papers you present here are on the very fringe of what the majority of climate scientists working in the field actually hold to be true given the evidence.
Douglass et al (2007) have fatal problems in their study, well known to those in the field. There are no error bars (check this). If they were included, the observation would overlap the models, making the conclusion that there is a discrepancy one which is reliant on an insignificant test. The study does not even consider known uncertainties like el nino. There are other problems and a practising climate scientist would give you chapter and verse on this all day long. In short, this paper has been widely discredited since publication.
Lintzen's paper is again on the very fringe. It is frought with errors, inconsistencies and gambles on variables. Again, I wonder if you know how the majority of the other climate scientists feel about these papers? Are you not aware these papers are widely condemned?, this is not because they do not fit a belief, but because the methods shown to be wrong. If you examine the number of papers that are a direct rebuttal of some of these fringe ideas, and of course, the number of papers that are in disagreement with them, it would be clear what is happening - there are a few rogue climate scientists (perhaps 1 out of 100) who disagree with the mainstream, yet have no strong evidence to back up their claim. In science, it is actually quite easy to indtroduce a seed of doubt in a well established idea, it's not so easy to prove that this seed of doubt has any truth. Unfortunately, this seed of doubt has turned into a big, climate sceptic fuelled oak tree when really it should remain deep in the infertile soil that it originated in.
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#107 simon-swede wrote:
"Highly nutritious" is not the same as "highly calorific".
"Highly calorific" is a start, as a doctor I used to know would say. As a medical student, he helped to deal with the recently-liberated Belsen, and would movingly describe the dramatic effects of small amounts of sugar.
But in any case, your standard Big Mac meal contains plenty of protein, vitamins and minerals as well as fats and carbohydrates -- all essential nutrients. If you think "fibre" is missing, let me remind you that fibre isn't a nutrient.
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Combating CO2 by switching to bio-fuels is not the answer if it means taking land out of food production, we will just have to give up cars and meat and flying if the increasing population of the world are to be fed. Not only will preventing AGW help poor people of the world, it will help us by weaning us from our unfulfilling life styles.
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I would like to see a program whereby rather than pay farmers not to grow food, we pay them to grow it and use it to relieve famines wherever they happen.
Sadly, there is always somewhere in the world where crops fail. That's no reason to let people starve.
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Dateline Gulf of Mexico day 44
Well, overnight BP began cutting the pipestring from the top of the wellhead, a procedure which should be finished today. After which they will attempt to attach a cap with a new pipestring and begin recovering the oil from the leaking wellhead. This is their seventh attempt to stem the flow - and their sixth which involved not sealing the well, but capturing the leaking oil and gas. People around here are not very happy about that.
Yesterday, it was reported that 2.1 million feet of booms are sitting idle at 17 staging locations around the northern Gulf of Mexico. Why? Well we haven't got any good answers from BP on that one.
While the creation of 125 miles of berms to help protect the wetlands, marshes, bogs and swamps was initially approved over a week ago - work has not yet begun. It appears that no one wants to pick up the tab. The Governor of Louisiana yesterday said if this had begun 15 days ago, there would already be over 10 miles in place - in the most sensitive areas - and the momentum would be accelerating by now.
People want to know why is it that every dredge, bulldozer and heavy lift helicopter are not either here or on the way. No one seems to have an answer to that.
Tony Haywood said yesterday that 'he wants his life back' - further enraging residents along the Gulf coast. Tony, in my view, has made one PR blunder after another, constantly downplaying the spill, denying the facts (get to that in a moment - with regards to the undersea plumes), and not being completely transparent through this affair. He needs to go, now, but should never 'get his life back' - he should be stripped of every penny he has and never allowed to be an officer in a public company again.
An independent deepwater research vessel, filled with oceanographers and other scientists have been exploring the waters around the leak. They have identified three large plumes of oil, one I reported on last week and BP denied its existence - it is over 22 miles long, 5 miles wide and 3300 feet thick. It appears that the dispersant used has caused the oil to mix with the water. While a jar of water appears clear - you just have to take the lid off and the smell knocks you over.
It was reported this morning that the oil slick is now just ten miles from the Alabama and Pensacola shore. With the current SSW winds in the area, it should not be long before the oil is washing up upon these beautiful beaches.
The size of the slick is now over 30,000 sq miles - that is over half the size of England. Imagine that - half of England covered in oil.
The US Attorney's office opened a criminal investigation yesterday, unfortunately they said that it would probably not result in anyone going to jail, but big fines and penalties. If negligence is found (and I believe it will), I think the 'big shots' should do jail time - and not in 'Club Fed' - send them to a real prison.
The consensus here appears to be that no one wants deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to stop - they just want to ensure that no corners are cut and that there is a viable response plan in place - not some boiler-plate garbage about protecting seals and walruses.
In my view, one of the biggest lessons learned thus far is that no single entity is prepared, nor can handle a disaster of such magnitude. I believe that a new plan should be put in place whereby all the oil companies drilling and producing in the region have a consolidated plan under which they all pool their resources - as well as those of the Federal Government and National Guard (for those of you who don't know, the National Guard don't answer to the Commander in Chief (President) but to the Governors of each state - unless they are called up by the Pentagon. It needs to be a solid, coordinated plan with all hands on deck and every resource brought to bear immediately.
Even if the leak were not as bad as it is (like Mr. Haywood was saying 5 days after the disaster) it would be better to spend a few billion to prevent a disaster than tens of billions to clean it up.
Iterating, I don't think any of the oil companies operating in the Gulf could handle a disaster of this magnitude on their own - there should be a regional response plan with every resource in the area organized, ready and available.
Well, as I said before, the hits just keep on coming.
I think that is enough bad news for today.
Kealey
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Speak for yourself wolfie.
I find my life quite fulfilling, thank you.
Certainly more fulfilling than that of the medieval peasants we would be forced to return to in order to "solve" AGW.
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Far right get in on the act.
A number of western companies have been buying up prime African farm land in order to grow food and even cut flowers to sale in the west thereby reducing the amount of food available to local people. The bio-fuel industry is now actively shopping for African farm land which will only exasperate the problem, the issue with bio-fuel verses food is well known and does not need explaining again here. It now appears that the far right are the latest to jump on the environmental/clean energy band wagon, there is now a chain email doing the rounds with pictures of what appears to be an African bio-fuel farm, pictures of hungry Africans and the caption “Grow bio-fuel not food, Combat Global Crowding”.
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110. At 2:43pm on 02 Jun 2010, Wolfiewoods wrote:
Combating CO2 by switching to bio-fuels is not the answer if it means taking land out of food production, we will just have to give up cars and meat and flying if the increasing population of the world are to be fed. Not only will preventing AGW help poor people of the world, it will help us by weaning us from our unfulfilling life styles.
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I agree with your first sentence - combating CO2 by switching to bio-fuels is not the answer - but for different reasons.
bio-fuels are not a viable replacement for fossil fuels because of energy content (density), additionally, more CO2 is released from bio-fuels than fossil fuels per unit of energy produced.
Here in the US, we should end the subsidies given to ethanol production - this would return the farm land to growing food.
In the third world, we need to supply them with tractors, fuel, energy for pumps and irrigation, resistant crops and fertilizers.
Currently in Africa, it takes ten times as much land to grow food per person than it does in the US (or most Western Nations). Also consider that we enjoy a much better diet - a lot more food per person - so if you actually step back and look at it - we grow food 20-30 times more efficiently in the US than in Africa.
Providing Africa and South Asia with modern farming techniques would not only solve the ongoing hunger problems, but also allow more environments and ecosystems to be preserved. This would be a big win all around.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#114 Wolfiewoods wrote: "Far right get in on the act. "A number of western companies have been buying up prime African farm land in order to grow food and even cut flowers to sale in the west thereby reducing the amount of food available to local people. The bio-fuel industry is now actively shopping for African farm land which will only exasperate the problem, the issue with bio-fuel verses food is well known and does not need explaining again here."
And there was me thinking the far right were groups like the BNP, not businesses...
Oh, and this biofuels thing is your fault.
If it hadn't been for the green groups banging on about the desperate need for alternative fuels for the past 30 years no one would have dreamed of driving with food instead of eating it.
Greens create the problem, and then complain about the solution. Nothing ever changes.
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Although I am sceptical of AGW, I am very keen on bio-fuels for reasons of energy security. Not only will it benefit the West to be free from energy controlled by regimes that despise us and that finance those who bomb us, it will also benefit people who currently live under oppressive regimes that are kept in power by the energy that they control and the powerful friends that such energy can buy, Burma for example.
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@SR #108
I don't mean to be argumentative
Don’t apologise, there is nothing wrong with healthy argument – argument is often how we discover what we believe in
the papers you present here are on the very fringe of what the majority of climate scientists working in the field actually hold to be true given the evidence
It doesn’t mean the papers are wrong though does it? No amount of experimentation can prove me correct, a single experiment can prove me wrong – Albert Einstein
You then point out “errors” in the papers and tell us there are a “number of papers that are a direct rebuttal of some of these fringe ideas”, but don’t cite the papers. One of the arguments that AGWers give is there is no or very little peer reviewed papers to contradict the AGW hypothesis, so could you cite the rebuttal papers please?
there are a few rogue climate scientists…
Again, you introduce an uncalled for ad hom. Why?
…yet have no strong evidence to back up their claim.
I disagree – the papers pointed to above are very strong evidence that sensitivity is low not high as per models, which do not take into account the affect of clouds and do not include all the parameters of the atmosphere, which even the IPCC acknowledges.
/Mango
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Brunnen_G @116
When you quoted me you missed out the relevant bit, the bit about the far right encouraging bio-fuels as a way of causing famine in Africa.
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I didn't quote that nonsense as I assumed you couldn't possibly be serious.
What on Earth would they have to gain?
And how can the "far right" be encouraging bio fuels? Aren't these the same people we are constantly told are owned by the oil companies?
One or the other wolfie, not both.
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#119 Wolfiewoods wrote:
"the far right encouraging bio-fuels as a way of causing famine in Africa."
I'm constantly trying to cause famine in Africa, but it never occurred to me that biofuels were the way to do it. Thanks for the tip -- it's biofuels for me from now on!
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<RICHPOST> Richard,<BR /><BR />The question you ask that most resonates in my mind is this: "Will the funds materialize?"...<BR /><BR />I would answer an unhesitant "NO!" because as always, these little games are more for show and international reputation (condescension) then actually to help the overwhelming climate crises that present themselves.<BR /><BR />Do I have one good example of my view? YES! It's called the Kyoto Protocol. How many modern nations not only ratified this treaty, but pledged, indirectly, millions of dollars in order to meet their 2008 emissions cutbacks? Dozens! And how many nations actually kept their promises? Maybe two? Of course, this was never widely covered since all key players had failed, and these dances are again, mostly about international "high class" reputation.<BR /><BR />It's sad I suppose, but more just maddening when the average world citizen who cares about these issues wastes their life chasing false hope...<BR /><BR />I enjoy your blog and will return. Cheers, Joseph, <a href="[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]</a> admin and activist </RICHPOST>
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Bowman at #109
I'm sure the McDonalds marketing folks would welcome your description of their project.
However I'm afraid I'm not buying your 'highly nutritious junk food' line, no matter how you sweet-talk me with sugar. Conformist that I am, I'll stick with the orthodox medical view that characterises "junk food" as that which is "low in nutritional value (i.e. lacking essential nutrients) and highly calorific". And which is repeatedly identified in dietry studies as being a major contributor towards obesity.
Enjoy your "Happy Meal"!
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Me at #123
Oops! I meant "product" not "project", in case anyone is wondering.
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#123 simon-swede wrote:
I'll stick with the orthodox medical view that characterises "junk food" as that which is "low in nutritional value (i.e. lacking essential nutrients) and highly calorific".
But which essential nutrients do you think are lacking in a Big Mac meal? If you think something is lacking, surely you can identify it? Or is this another I-know-all-about-the-nature-of-obligation-I-just-couldn't-be-bothered-explaining-it-to-you claims?
I think you're allowing your moral virtue to steer your factual judgement. 'Macdonalds = bad', therefore 'Big Mac meal = not nutritious'.
There's a reason why "virtuous" types see junk food as a Great Evil. By externalizing the cause of the malaise (bad food as the cause of obesity) we can turn a blind eye to our own failings (gluttony as the cause of obesity).
Puritanical prohibitions (on alcohol, prostitution, etc. and more recently junk food) are the equivalent of Ulysses shooting the Sirens instead of having himself tied to the mast.
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Bowman at #125
Oh! The marketing types at Big M's won't like you calling their food "junk"! By the way, I never did! (You are the one who made claims for McDonald's food!)
Bowman, "junk food" was a term coined specifically to characterise foods that are "low in nutritional value (i.e. lacking essential nutrients) and highly calorific". Even McDonalds would acknowledge that term, it's just that they wouldn't consider their product fits the label.
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#126 simon-swede wrote:
"they wouldn't consider their product fits the label"
And nor should you, as you are evidently unable to identify a lacking nutrient.
In fact most of what is called "junk food" by current beacons of virtue such as yourself are just "stuff we think people shouldn't eat", for reasons of Western parochialism, or anti-Capitalism, or whatever.
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Wolfiewoods mentions Western company’s buying up African farm land in order to grow cut flowers to sale in the west, he suggests that this will reduce the amount of food available to local people. Left to the Africans I doubt that this land would produce anything, western company’s are providing the motivation that the Africans lack. Many peoples of the world have been dealt a poor hand by fate but still make a go of it, much of Africa has plentiful resources yet its people show no interest in development, all they want is drugs and guns.
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Bowman at #127
Unlike you, I never made any claims for McDonald's food. My only point with "junk food" point is to challenge your contention that it is somehow "highly nutritious". I think the only place you'll find that phrased used as a descriptor of "junk food" is in the Bowman lexicon.
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#129 simon-swede wrote:
My only point with "junk food" point is to challenge your contention that it is somehow "highly nutritious".
The "somehow" is the context in which life is threatened by lack of proper nutrition. My words were:
"What we call 'junk food' would be a highly nutritious life-saver to someone who can only afford rice."
If you think that is mistaken, please explain what is mistaken about it.
You have evidently got some sort of "problem" with me, and habitually miss the point. I suggest you examine your own moralistic self-image.
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Bowman at #130
Very simply, by definition "junk food" is not "highly nutritious". In this sense, the term refers to an 'absolute' not a 'relative' attribute. The reason I say that is that the term "junk food" was coined specifically to refer to that food which is lacking important nutritional attributes. Whether some "junk food" is less bad than others, I leave to those who think it is important to quibble over such distinctions. But is any "junk food" highly nutritious - no, it isn't.
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#131 simon-swede wrote:
by definition "junk food" is not "highly nutritious"
I don't know whose definition you are using, but many English speakers blame obesity on "junk food", which suggests that it tastes good to many people and is highly calorific, which means it contains a lot of fat or carbohydrates. In terms of brute survival, those are two very important components of nutrition.
Evolutionary thinkers generally attribute our taste for fatty, sweet and salty foods to their survival value in more "normal" conditions than wealthy present-day Sweden.
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bowmanthebard #132.
"..it [junk food] tastes good to many people and is highly calorific ... In terms of brute survival, those are two very important components of nutrition."
so flavour is a "very important" nutritional component necessary for "brute survival"??
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Bowman at #132
Which dictionary might I be using:
Junk food:
- "Any of various prepackaged snack foods high in calories but low in nutritional value." (The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, 2007)
- "A popular term for any food low in essential nutrients and high in salt" (McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine, 2002)
- "Food that appeals to popular (esp. juvenile) taste but as little nutritional value" (The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary, 1993)
- "Food that is high in calories but low in nutritional content" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, online edition)
The list could go on - and one common feature is that refer to food which is low in nutritional content. I can't find one that describes it as anything resembling "highly nutritious". Popular, yes. Nutritious, no. Implicated in obesity - yes. Nutrient rich, nope. High in calories, yes.
I give it one last try, and will use a comparison that I might hope would be comprehensible to you: to describe "junk food" as "highly nutritious" is like describing "junk science" as producing "highly meaningful results".
To say that "junk food" is not highly nutritious, is no more moralistic than to say that "junk science" cannot yield meaningful results. You complain about my "moralistic" atrtitude as if I had said something like "it should be banned" or "people shouldn't eat it" or something... I didn't. I wouldn't. I pointed out that it is implicated in obesity and that obesity comes at a high cost (with details of rising cost of medical care for obesity-related conditions). But such information is releavnt to people making informed choices, it does not suggest that I would impose something on them.
No doubt you'll have some rejoinder, but don't expect a further reply. It's simply not worth it.
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simon-swede #134.
there you go again, citing 'The American Heritage Medical Dictionary', and 'The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary' as your sources.
don't you know that "At the very least, you need to have some way of judging who is a genuine authority on the things you know little about."
:-)
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Bowman at #135
Ummm, you wrote: "I don't know whose definition you are using"
I replied with some dictionary definitions and now you compain that I refer to a dictionary! I offer profuse apologies for providing you with an answer to your question.
Lets see, my basis for judging who may or may not be an authority on this point. Common-sense, might be one - applied to the assertions made. How about, the years I spent studying at medical school before graduating and subsequent experience working in medicine? I reckon that might give me some basis for making a judgement here too. Admittedly though, I never did specialise in nutrition, so I can't claim myself as a genuine authority.
Yours?
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simon-swede #136.
my humerous attempt at highlighting the futility -- IMO -- to have a debate where the OP does not use accepted terms and definitions seems to have failed.
sigh..
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#137 correction.
[even deeper] sigh..
misspelt 'humorous'.
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jr4412 at #137 and #138
Ooops! And darn! Sorry!!!!! Talk about an inappropriate knee-jerk reaction on my part... My apologies!
I did wonder about Bowman quoting linking to something he posted earlier... I should have done a double-take!
Now that the penny has dropped with an almighty big 'CLUNK', your post is funny - you even got the tone 'just so' I reckon.
As to typos, for once I can claim to be a genuine authority. I reckon they are one of the more consistent aspects of my postings! Perhaps the Beeb could have an auto-spelling check that highlights miss-spellings (default would be have to be UK english, of course). It might help me practice my English too!
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"Food that is high in calories but low in nutritional content"
This definition is an oxymoron: it has gerrymandered the concept of 'nutritional content' to exclude calorific content (mostly fats and carbohydrates).
Anyone who thinks "calorific content" has "low nutritional value" to the starving is just ignorant.
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#136 simon-swede wrote:
"years I spent studying at medical school before graduating and subsequent experience working in medicine?"
I am appalled to think that a medical professional would be unaware that fats and carbohydrates are not of nutritional value, and sincerely hope you never treated people who were starving.
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"would be unaware that fats and carbohydrates are not of nutritional value"
Sorry, I meant unaware that they ARE of nutritional value.
I'd guess that a human could survive a few days without water, a few weeks without calorific intake, a few months without protein, perhaps a year or more without vitamins. This suggests that calorific intake is at least of as much "nutritional value" as protein or vitamins (although they are all essential).
In famine situations where people are literally starving, the really vital missing "ingredients" tend to be the sort of things found in "junk food". The dictionaries that define 'junk food' in terms of nutritional value are clearly assuming a parochial modern Western understanding of nutritional value.
Cheap food has prolonged the lives of far larger numbers of poor people in the developing world than it has shortened the lives of wealthy fatties in the West. It is the main cause of the population explosion of recent centuries.
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Another thing. Dictionaries record how language is actually used. So they capture all of the currently-fashionable bog-standard conceptual confusions that are embodied in current language use. Anyone who practices medicine by judging nutritional value on the basis of what the dictionary says about "nutritional value" would be "struck off" in most Western countries.
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Bowman at #140 to #143
The oxymoron is your "highly-nutritious junk food". No-one denies that junk food is highly calorific, that's part of the problem. It's what you don't get along with all the calories that's anotehr part of the problem.
But if you want to have another crusade to add to your collection, go ahead with your weird definition and fanciful interpretation and proclaim it to anyone who is daft enough to listen. It will make a world of difference, I'm sure.
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