global warming

[Campo]

Hey debeest, I beat you to it by 2 minutes!

Glad you replied though -- initially I interpreted your "brilliant idea" post the way you just explained, but when I read Monk's response I thought maybe I got it backwards. Good to clear it up.

And I agree with you. I'm not positive he's wrong. I just feel that the consequences are so severe -- and irreversable -- that we'd darn well better be careful.

[Bloody Monk]

Campo

That's better. A beginning at least. I appreciate you making the arguement about facts.

I never said (nor I think did Straybow) that GW does not exist. We have problems of many sorts with "climate"--climate being used here as a catch-all. I have said this previously. I do not agree that something, anything, must be done immediately--to be safe. We need answers--intelligence gathering--before acting. That's just my view. What I find disheartening is the ridicule heaped on others who don't agree with the "do something to make me feel better, now" stance. I am convinced we need to do something; and, I am convinced we don't yet know what that is. The point is that the science is not complete; not that it is not absolute. With those modifications, I think we are more in agreement than not.

As to your points...

1) We also account for 25% of the world's production and are the market for everyone else's production. What Kyoto proposes is analogous to a tax on one group that will be distributed to another. This is redistribution. More importantly, raising taxes reduces output and slows growth...for the exporting countries, too. Where are they going to sell that new production if you throw the world economy into depression??

2) Fair?? What does fair have to do with it?? If high emissions are bad, then let's stop high emissions--everywhere and for everyone. Have you ever waked up in the morning in New Delhi, choking and looked out over the city?? These countries need help dealing with pollution now; not encouragement to make it worse. Wouldn't it make more sense to find ways to help them develop more intelligently than we did??

3) This is a good point. The developed nations can better afford to clean up pollution. And all of us should. But it doesn't follow that some countries should be allowed to freely pollute.

4)"This is a political/social issue more than a scientific one, at least given our current state of scientific abilities and information."

That is what I said, too...in different words, to be sure. This is a political issue (redistribution of wealth). Maybe, if people stopped using science to sell their politics, then we could get to real problem solving.

5) "Given that, it's easier, and a lot more fun, to turn to some good-natured sarcasm."

Okay...I completely missed that point. You guys are just poking Straybow (and me too, I guess) to have some fun, watching for the response. I thought this was a meaningful discussion...I'm a tuna, hook, line, and sinker. Happy I am, to give so much enjoyment to my fellow Civers.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Campo
I just feel that the consequences are so severe -- and irreversable -- that we'd darn well better be careful.

I just feel surprised that this thread was not closed a long time ago

Poor bellisaurus... I can't even remember if his original question was answered.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by debeest

Stray, you say that limiting U.S. emissions more stringently than the emissions of undeveloped nations is "punishing success." Monk, you say that it establishes a "regime to redistribute wealth." Aren't you both saying, in essence, that because the U.S. is currently rich, it's entitled to use a disproportionate share of the world's resources and create a disproportionate share of the world's pollution in order to ensure its continued disproportionate wealth? Do you feel comfortable staking out that position?

No, Sir. I am not saying that at all. No one is entitled. If that's what you see in my words, maybe you should look in the mirror. Maybe this is what you are looking for so this is what you see. Whether the US is 'rich' or has 'disproportionate wealth' has nothing to do with my central arguement. If emissions are bad, they should be stopped everywhere for everyone. Period. Full stop.

[Campo]

These countries need help dealing with pollution now; not encouragement to make it worse. Wouldn't it make more sense to find ways to help them develop more intelligently than we did??

Good point, Monk. I agree.

I thought this was a meaningful discussion...I'm a tuna, hook, line, and sinker. Happy I am, to give so much enjoyment to my fellow Civers.

It did start out as a serious discussion, IIRC. But after a while it was pretty clear that we were all spinning our wheels. So I thought I'd have a little fun. I like Straybow; I wasn't really trying to skewer him.

Maybe, if people stopped using science to sell their politics, then we could get to real problem solving.

You're probably right but I don't think we'll ever know. It's human nature, and we're all human. (Except maybe for Xin Yu, who seems to have some supernatural capabilities.)

[Straybow]

@debeest: To quote the great Rosanne Rosanadana, "Oh… Nevermind."

[Straybow]

Too sleepy to step on the soapbox before

Watching for Ming-rays…

STYOM, I think bellisaurius (a nickname that really hits my funnybone, exactly why I haven't pinned down yet) ran for the hills long ago, wrapping up a few tidbits of answers in a scrap of flame-singed blanket.

Campo, precisely why I responded earlier with tongue firmly planted in cheek. My response to your above points is this: we do pay for it, no matter where the antipollution controls are imposed. We're the ones driving the markets for heavy industry in most underdeveloped nations. We buy Chinese steel because it is cheaper than domestic due to subsidies and poor wages; no sense giving them an "out" while imposing huge costs on others.

If CO2 emissions are bad then none should be exempted. The exemptions point to ulterior motives among those who drafted Kyoto. Concessions to the two countries with the highest potential for emissions over the next century is a clear sign that punishing the haves to advance the havenots is more the important objective: politically correctness through and through.

I am inclined to disagree with you despite the correction of my reading, debeest. Desiring solid data and models before imposing multihectagigabuck burdens upon the citizens of N Amer, Eur, and Japan is nothing brilliant or newsworthy. It is simply an appeal to good science as everybody defines good science. It becomes newsworthy only in contrast to bad science.

I love a quote that I've no doubt mangled (in word and in attribution to GBS): "Those who say politics is the last refuge of scoundrels underestimate the potential of reform." In that vein I am a skeptic of all international do-gooding, into which catergory gw intervention must fall. When that intervention is distinctly skewed I feel the scoundrels have found a home.

Academia now rarely calls upon the workers to unite and overthrow the exploiters. Instead it punishes those it sees as exploiters through redistribution of wealth. And it works—the punishment part, anyway. The cøck-eyed schemes designed to uplift the oppressed don't. Saying it is not as bad as a reign of terror is faint praise. But we're already far afield from Civ2, so let me get to the point.

In my eyes, the burden of proof that Kyoto isn't more of the same, piled higher and deeper, lies squarely upon the shoulders of those who would foist it on me and expect me to lap it up (and pay for it). I will search for any reasonable doubt (ie, good science) and extend to it far more credit than emotion-laden, worst-case-scenario appeals. In a game it is offensive in itself and as lending support for the bad science (wittingly or no).

[Campo]

Straybow,

And I thought I wouldn't change anyone's mind.

[bellisaurius]

I'm not quite dead yet (dramatic pause) $@#&^ thunk^*%^%.

I've been periodically glancing in and out and when I would come up with something it would often get addressed before I said anything.

PS the reason the name sounds kind of funny is probably along the lines of the way my girlfriend picks on my moniker, belly-saurus. Of course taking the latinized, it comes out to lizard from war, or the actual reason is its a mangled spelling of the byzantine bellisarus.

[Straybow]

Yes, now the image coalesces in the mind: Bellisarius transformed into a smiling, purple dinosaur! Die, DIE, DIE!!!

[bellisaurius]

Well, straybow, if blue smurfs are on your menu, I guess big purple dinosaurs can't be far behind (and to increase the effect, my parents call me barney, oh the irony!).

As to the topic, I decided to play around a while ago and I was amazed at the amount of pollution the game would let you get away with. It was like finding out that, no, you really DON'T need to clean your room. It was great! I clean it up, but I don't feel the need to be fastidious. Free up those engineers!

[Campo]

I was amazed at the amount of pollution the game would let you get away with

I assume you mean before global warming kicks in?

However that's not the only repercussion -- you also have the immediate loss of food on the polluted square. That can result in city hunger and eventually population decrease.

[Straybow]

Dropping food, shield, and trade production to half value, rounded down, is enough to motivate prompt cleanup. So if it's a tile you aren't using, or a mountain that's only giving you 2 shields anyway…

[bellisaurius]

I guess I sounded to gung-ho there. I won't just let pollution sit there, but I'm not afraid of warming if I don't get to a tile or two before the end of the turn.

Actually I rarely have problem with pollution anyway since I get the rail network up and I try to concentrate all my factories to one continent so I can have a greater density of engineers (I estimate the amount of pollution that will probably show up on a given turn per continent and leave two engineers for every pollutin tile I expect) and not have to worry about moving them around to different continents ( I don't build a lot of airports. I play TOT so I'm usually building starports by the time I need them).

This probably leaves me weak at the fringes of the empire, but I use the task force theory (build a balanced force, attack at a given schewerpuncht) to concentrate on the borders to make up for it.

[Straybow]

I thought SMAC was gloomy, then I got ToT… never finished one game on it. I thought the scifi and fantasy worlds would be cool. Maybe I'll give it another try one of these days.

---

I think you and Barney are safe, for now. Barney is (by all accounts) purple only on the outside, whereas Smurfs are assuredly Smurf blue to the bone.

One day I came to work and my manager (Libby) was all worked up about something and everyone was bickering. I also noticed that someone had spilled some blue swimming pool sealant on the carpet in the hallway between the lobby and the offices.

So, in my best Something Got Screwed Up And I'm Peeved About It expression I stood at the doorway and said, "All right, somebody come here and explain this!" They tried to ignore me, so I repeated it. In a moment Libby and a couple other people stopped fussing over whatever and came to where I was standing.

I pointed to the floor and said, "Who killed a Smurf and didn't clean the blood out of the carpet?"

One stood there blankly (maybe didn't know what a Smurf was) but for everyone else it really broke the tension. Libby was laughing so hard (in part because she realized how worked up she'd been) she had to sit down until she could breathe.

Eventually I made a reward poster to hang near the stain: "Who Killed Papa Smurf?" Complete with picture of Papa in a pool of like-colored blood.
Later that year I heard the backstory behind the B5 term "spoo" and twisted it into the phrase in my sig line. Now that I think about it I'll change to that date instead of 2001 when I first used it here on my sig.