Super typhoon Haiyan slams the Philippines

[kentonio]

What does their science have to do with globe trotting in gas guzzling private jets? Do you understand what accountability means?

Who exactly is it you think a scientist has to be accountable to for their behavior other than their funding bodies? They are messengers delivering you information that could prove to be vitally important. Ignoring that information because the scientists are behaving badly is like ignoring a tax bill because the postman kicked your dog.

[Patroklos]

You do understand that they are making only a science arguement but also a moral arguement for behavior modification for EVERYONE right? If they wish to keep faith with those they want to influence, they are accountable to those same people.

Except you apparently, who are too busy prostrating yourself before your warlocks to demand such fidelity.

[KrazyHorse]

Land is expensive in manhattan because supply is artificially restricted.

Where supply is unhindered - price equilibrium is reached at a lower level for items under greater demand than for items under lesser demand. This is why computers today are cheaper than in 1980, even though demand is so much higher.

This is a very strange way to look at the situation. I would break the problem into demand and supply separately - what do you think will happen to demand? What do you think will happen to supply? What are the codependencies? Asserting that everywhere and always demand creates more than its own supply is like asserting a backwards version of say's law as understood by a ******.

[KrazyHorse]

Also, I like the idea that land prices in Manhattan would be lower than in Plano, TX under a regime which did not unnecessarily restrict land usage (which, to be clear, is certainly a thing that drives Manhattan rents up).

[MikeH]

You do understand that they are making only a science arguement but also a moral arguement for behavior modification for EVERYONE right? If they wish to keep faith with those they want to influence, they are accountable to those same people.

Except you apparently, who are too busy prostrating yourself before your warlocks to demand such fidelity.

All the IPCC report does is tell people what is happening and what is likely to happen. The behaviour modification point is being made by lots of people, some of whom are scientists, but that's irrelevant to the science.

They have worked hard to make the IPCC conferences carbon neutral for obvious reasons, but people tend to ignore that.

Face to face networking is still a particularly useful tool for humans, so getting everyone together to share knowledge and collaborate and the truth is that places set up to handle big conferences like this tend to be in nice touristy places.

The only bad thing about it is that it's an easy target for haters, but most people don't look beyond the surface.

[kentonio]

You do understand that they are making only a science arguement but also a moral arguement for behavior modification for EVERYONE right? If they wish to keep faith with those they want to influence, they are accountable to those same people.

Except you apparently, who are too busy prostrating yourself before your warlocks to demand such fidelity.

You don't seem to be able to grasp quite a simple concept, if you ignore their advice then you and your family are the ones who suffer. It's not like ignoring the science makes the science disappear. It's just cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Wezil]

Who gives a **** about some perceived hypocrisy on the part of the scientists? If they're right and the world is quite quickly going to hell in a ****-basket, then I'm not surprised they're living it up. It's not like anyone is taking the slightest bit of notice of their advice anyway, so why bother holding back?

Oh my.

Call me a scientist then and get the **** off my back.

[Wezil]

I bet the idea of having royals live lives of luxury while telling the peasants to consume less seems perfectly natural to the British.

Apparently.

Old habits die hard.

[Wezil]

They're providing data that says if we don't act now, we're going to suffer horrific consequences. What, are we supposed to go through that just a prove a goddam point?

Again, let me know when the Chinese and Indians on board.

Were Canada and Canadians to reduce our emissions to 0% the overall impact would be so small as to be symbolic. I won't wreck my economy so they can continue building a coal plant per week.

[kentonio]

Again, let me know when the Chinese and Indians on board.

Were Canada and Canadians to reduce our emissions to 0% the overall impact would be so small as to be symbolic. I won't wreck my economy so they can continue building a coal plant per week.

Except that countries like China are already working towards reducing emissions. How exactly are we supposed to push them to continue if we can't be arsed to do it ourselves?

[Wezil]

"Working towards"?

So are we. Problem/disagreement solved.

[Wezil]

I love the idea we can lead the Chinese by example.

[MikeH]

Yeah Wezil you are right. Canada is pretty irrelevant.

[Aeson]

I am doing my part to help prevent global warming ... I may have discovered zero point energy. Time will tell ...

I have a car battery hooked to an inverter, and the inverter hooked to a 12 volt battery charger ... which then feeds back into the car battery. We're charging cell phones off it and watched Iron Man 3 ... who sorta did the same thing with his heart.

Every once in a while we have to unplug another cell phone or the inverter will make a clicking sound at us. I'm starting to worry we didn't have enough cell phones plugged in at the start ... we'll be out soon and I might have to unplug my laptop!

Hopefully big oil doesn't see this post and send a death squad ... If you are reading this, I promise tomorrow to hook up the generator and start guzzling petrol.

[kentonio]

I love the idea we can lead the Chinese by example.

It's not about leading by example, it's more about us looking like a bunch of hypocrites when we ask them to cut emissions by large amounts when we aren't willing to do the same.