August 2016 Open Thread

More like this

Stu2 never fricking learns, no matter how many times he is told, that increased Antarctic sea ice is not a signal of cooling but more a sign of increased melt and an uptick in atmospheric moisture which settles as snow on freshening water. What happens to water near 0°C when it has loses most of its salt content from freshening with melt?

Any direct comparison with the Arctic is bogus oh numbskull.

Stu2 is a closet AGW denier. The sources he often cites as well - like the old, academic fringers he has regularly uses to downplay other threats associated with AGW - are telling.

He is a waste of time in other words.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 02 Aug 2016 #permalink

2stupid for sensible words, or links.

and all others slow on the uptake take note:

In Siberia, an anthrax outbreak is raging through the human and reindeer populations because infected corpses locked in permafrost since the last epidemic in 1941 have thawed.

The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us

Cue some idiotspeil in return.

Jeff.
You need to get over trying to psychologically analyse people and calling people names based on nothing else but your personal opinion.
Your comments do not match your claimed political beliefs.
I do not deny that mankind influences environment, even in the closet :-)
I question the need to over state the worst case scenario.
Therefore I question the politics and the hijacking of science by the politics ON BOTH WINGS!!!

Therefore I question the politics and the hijacking of science by the politics ON BOTH WINGS!!!

A glaring example of false balance, and more.

So, there I am playing denier-whackamole on some newspaper comments section, and I pause to check what I have just typed:
"*HOT* records are being broken at 4x the rate that *COLD* records are being broken - does that tell you anything?"

And I think to myself - I've been believing this "fact" for several years now. Do I know it remains true?

So, I venture over to US Daily Weather Records to see what the current status is.
Let's just say I was flabbergasted:

U.S. All Time Records Summary

PERIOD HIGH MAX HIGH MIN LOW MAX LOW MIN
Last 365 Days 44 80 3 4

I was wrong! Not "4x", but now "17x"....

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 04 Aug 2016 #permalink

Lionel.
There is no balance in politics. Especially when you only have one wing.
Both wings are hijacking science.
I would still not call that balance, false or otherwise.

There is no balance in politics.

Prat, the false balance is in your statement not politics per se. Do think.

Provide evidence for your indication that both 'wings' are 'high jacking' science. But before that define what you mean as 'wings'.

Cue some idiotspeil in return.

Yes, well, hi there Craig #8. While reading the post I actually tripped at first over your measly factor 4. But then, so did you :)
Well done.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 05 Aug 2016 #permalink

I just read what Stu2 wrote above:
"I question the need to over state the worst case scenario."

This is what's wrong with these people - they just don't have access to any Reason, it seems.

Stu2, please cons9ider - rationally, (and preferably with references to the IPCC AR1 report which represents the current state of science on this issue and which is where we should all hope to be informed from) - how is anybody "over-stating" a worst-case scenario, NAMELY, given any "scenario" you imagine is being presented, HOWTHEFUCKCANYOU POSSIBLY know that it has been "over-stated"???

Are you maybe a time-traveller from the year 2350?

By craig thomas (not verified) on 08 Aug 2016 #permalink

"increased Antarctic sea ice is not a signal of cooling "

Remember, StuPid didn't make any claim about what Antarctic sea ice meant.

Please don't do half the moron's work for them. Let them make an actual claim first. THEN shoot down the idiot.

"Jeff.
You need to get over trying to psychologically analyse people and calling people names based on nothing else but your personal opinion."

OK, but since there's mode than his personal opinion, but referenced actions YOU have taken to support those claims,you need to get over calling people names based on half the facts, selected by you to make a misleading scenario.

" Therefore I question the politics and the hijacking of science by the politics ON BOTH WINGS!!!"

Where is the evidence for this on the left wing, stupid?

"Lionel.
There is no balance in politics. "

Evidence required, not unbalanced rhetoric.

"Especially when you only have one wing."

Why do you claim this AND that "BOTH WINGS"???? Joined up thinking isn't something you do when you're whirling around with wild claims like a madman.

"Both wings are hijacking science."

Didn't you just say there was only one wing???? And how can a singular thing be "unbalanced"? And where is the evidence that the left wing has hijacked science???

"I would still not call that balance, false or otherwise."

But you won't call it one wing or two wings, so what the fuck should we care about what YOU call things, given you cannot even claim one is different from two?

I don't understand this "hijacking science" concept.
In Soviet Russia, science was indeed hijacked - political correctness became more important than the scientific method. Scientists were dismissed or encouraged depending on the approval of their political masters. Pretty much how Tony Abbott, Donald Trump, Inhofe and other nutters on the Right would like it to work today.
But that hasn't actually happened anywhere else. Our societies are reasonably robust and have not allowed them to get their way - the Right can't "hijack science" because on the whole, it isn't inside the tent in the first place.
The Left is busy hijacking sociology and psychology and other pseudo-sciences in order to further their crypto-marxist attacks on civilised society, but as these subjects aren't actual sciences, they are irrelevant to the physical sciences, which are the sciences which tell us about global warming.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 08 Aug 2016 #permalink

Craig.
The crypto-Marxist attacks on civilised society (as you say) are also hijacking environmental science and climate science.
They overstate & then demand extreme political solutions that are not practical, only political.
The greens and the political environmental movement have lost their way.

Well, the Greens have over the years occasionally interfered with proper land management by preventing necessary burning-off.
And then we get huge summer fires, so the burn-offs reswume for a few years, then people forget, then the Greens interfere again, and we go around the cycle.
Hilariously, when the huge 2013 Wirritin Ridge fire was threatening my property (and all the neighbours') , RFS hired a bulldozer to help them widen all the tracks so they could plan some proper containment lines. They drove the dozer South through numerous properties and then got to a property just to the South of mine, the dumb#%$@ greenies living there told them they couldn't come in, they didn't want a bulldozer scraping a big path through all their precious tree ferns and whatnot.
Well, the fire reached our Eastern boundaries, spent a week burning along the eastern edge of my property but never managed to jump the furthest creek, the neighbour to me North had a big flare up that came through a bit before being stopped, but when the fire reached the dumb greenies, it roared right through their property.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 10 Aug 2016 #permalink

Anyway, I have no idea what you mean by "political solutions".

The coal industry is like the VHS video cassette. Cling to it if you like, but it's not going to be involved in the energy industry forever, this is plain economics, nothing to do with the Greens.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 10 Aug 2016 #permalink

Especially at about 32 minutes whenb he does a Dawkins and explains why Denial is useful...

By craig thomas (not verified) on 11 Aug 2016 #permalink

"In Soviet Russia, science was indeed hijacked"

As you were told.

"political correctness became more important than the scientific method"

Ah, I see. It's not just what marxist theory, or its ideal, is, but what "political correctness" means and where it came from you don't understand.

PC was proposed by Marx as the passive-aggressive method of the capitalist system to smother opposing opinions by making the mere utterance of certain words or phrases "verboten". IT WAS A BAD THING ACCORDING TO MARX.

Indeed look at how it's "politically incorrect" to maintain that communism was good in any way, or that captialism is bad, or that private industry is a social good, or indeed that Islam is good or Christianity bad.

"Well, the Greens have over the years occasionally interfered with proper land management by preventing necessary burning-off."

Yeah, right.

It was the "Greens" who did that.

Of course, blaming the capitalists for rivers that catch fire in the sunshine is verboten....

"They overstate "

Your prior claim to this was queried and evidence requested, such evidence being completely absent in all the time since.

Since this claim is unsupported by any rational reality, the remainder of your screed can be rationally summarily dismissed.

"& then demand extreme political solutions that are not practical, only political."

This too has absolutely no reality presented to support the claim.

Craig.
Agree re scrub, forestry, NP management, fire management & actually NRM in general.
As soon as it's viable and reliable and economical, we'll be off the grid in a heartbeat.
Our lives are all built around 24/7 access to energy.

Stu2 has me on the floor with this howler: "Crypto-Marxist attacks on civilized society".

First of all, I have no idea whatsoever what he is referring to with 'civilized society'. I suppose he means developed western nations that obtain the resources they need to maintain the gap and advantage over poor nations through coercion and violence, ether economically or militarily. This daft idiot should read "Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation", "Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor" and/or "To Cook a Continent" and learn something about how the 'civilized' countries are plundering Africa with little in the way of concern for human rights, human dignity, freedom and democracy. While he is at it, he might try, "Empire's Workshop" that clearly shows how the global hegemon used/plundered/exploited et al. Latin America as a warm p for its global empire project.

I am sick of Stu2's vapid ignorance when it comes to discourse on 'civilization'. This clot does not have a clue what he talks about. He probably thinks that unregulated capitalism is civilized and that western bombs raining across much of the developing world for the past 60 years were dropped with love and good intent; that western corporations rapaciously working their way across the planet are doing so out of some inherent love of nature and humanity.

He tends to break discussions down into 'left' or 'right' camps, as if these polar extremes are the only ones that exist. But of course there is a continuum of ideas and philosophies in between that embrace social justice and human dignity and would work to ensure that political systems work to the benefit of all rather than privileged few, as is now the case. The bottom line is that our political/economic systems in the developed world are anything but 'civilized' if we are to tally the vast amounts of blood on our hands in terms of the human and environmental costs that have accrued over past century. One thing is for certain: the current system is broken and does not work. As a recent paper in Science amply demonstrated, ecological systems across the biosphere have been so ravaged by human actions that many are on the brink or beyond it. Biodiversity at all levels of organization have been so reduced in many systems that they are either on the verge of collapse or are in the process of collapsing already, taking with them services that sustain what Stu2 in his vacuous ignorance would refer to as 'our civilization'. The very word 'civilization' in this context is an oxymoron, as no true civilization wold knowingly destroy its own ecological life support systems as ours is doing.

Chris Hedges and others with sense and compassion note with prescience how our 'civilization' is following the same trajectory as those that preceded it and which collapsed. Tainter, Redman and other historians have chronicled this in their writings, drawing a direct parallel between these previous collapses and the impending collapse of the current 'civilization'. It s just too bad that Stu2 is a clear example of the Dunning-Kruger affliction: he thinks that he is well informed whereas the truth is strikingly different.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Aug 2016 #permalink

We don't get our resources from the 3rd world. We get our jetsam from there, and have been shovelling aid in their direction for over 100 years to no discernable effect. Their endemic propensity to generate fractured, violent and ineffably corrupt societies can't possibly be anybody else's fault but their own.

As for Wow - I will take your word for it that Karl Marx had some theoretical notions that he called "political correctness".

When *I* refer to political correctness, I refer to the real-world political correctness, which was the aspiration by enthusiastic members of the communist party who wanted to remain in good standing with the Party by embracing approved ideas - a concept that even spread to science in the Soviet Union and is perfectly paralleled by the activities of the likes of Ken Cuccinelli, Ted Cruz, and Sen. Inhofe in modern-day america.

If you don't know what real-world political correctness is, you could try Solzhenitsyn or Kundera, who deal with it extensively. You could also read Martin Cruz-Smith for a look at its practical application in "Gorki Park".
Koestler's "Darkness at Noon", however is probably the best exposition, especially when he deals with the actions of the Soviet-backed German union movement following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentropp agreement.
Just imagine you were a Unionist and you were directed to stop opposing fascism by your Soviet backers? It's even funny, despite being so tragic.

By craig thomas (not verified) on 12 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff WRT book references in #30 I have looked those up and the first two have a highish, for paperback, price tag and are rather long in the tooth. This is not to say that they are not worth a read by those with a genuine desire to engage in adult discussion on this topic but have not previously had a chance to read such material. I have so excuse if I don't purchase them. I don't have access to a useful library, the one I used to frequent with eagerness is now overloaded by entertainment stuff so much so that textbooks have been drastically culled and any remaining pushed up stairs into what was exclusively Reference. I am convinced this is all a part of a policy to dumb down the electorate with costs being sued as a smoke screen.

I often search for specific books which are not of the common round these increasingly being second hand and bearing the marks of culled library stock. It is obviously a nation wide problem.

The third book 'To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa' is more reasonable and recent in date so I may just add that to my already groaning bookshelves (often raided by my grown up children and their friends). I figure I am already on the same page as you WRT the rape of third world resources by the elites of the developed world and the socio-political regimens they encourage.

I don't think Stu2 has the capacity to ever understand this and, judging by his last comment, Craig is struggling too. I am not sure what Craig calls waste exports from developed countries to third world countries, I figure that could be classed as 'jetsam'. It is well known by all too few that much waste, supposedly for recycling at that, ends up in e.g. Indonesia.

Craig should read more Pilger etc.

..demand extreme political solutions that are not practical, only political.

Well IIUC the practical solutions are to put a tax on carbon, build more renewables and improve efficiency. How are they not practical?

By Turboblocke (not verified) on 12 Aug 2016 #permalink

Craig, puh-lease. Your point is total and utter garbage. Why else would 38 huge multi-national corporations, all based in the G-7, wish to control all of the 21 trillion dollars worth of mineral resources in one of the poorest nations on Earth, the Congo? Why else is China making massive inroads into Africa and South America? Why is the US also expanding Afri-com and South-com? You want to discuss the immortal words of George Kennan? Or explain why the US has continually attempted to subvert democracy across Latin America and elsewhere in the world? Or try and explain why US/UK planners have always sought to undermine indigenous nationalism in the economically poor-resource rich nations of the south?

Where do I also begin to deconstruct your argument that 'poor governance is their own fault'? A major hurdle is, like with Stu2, you and I clearing debating on very different intellectual levels. You've obviously never read a declassified planning document in your entire life, or from anyone (e.g. Mark Curtis, John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, David Peterson, Greg Grandin etc. who have. If you knew more you'd never make such utterly flippant remarks.

One of Kennan's last poignant remarks concerned his worry that governments in South America were going more to the left, threatening what he referred to as 'our resources' - even though they happened to lie on or under the land of another country. This is how US (and UK) planners have traditionally viewed the resource wealth of other countries - as the property of US investors 'by right' even though they happen to be somewhere else.

To call these resources 'flotsam' is the epitome of stupidity. To be honest it does not even deserve a dignified response.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Aug 2016 #permalink
By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Aug 2016 #permalink

A *minimal* amount of scepticism and critical analysis is enough to tell you that this one:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-invades-africa-the-resource-war-an…
Is a complete pile of rubbish.
Yes, Mali has been torn apart by an islamist secession that (similar to Syria) took advantage of governance failure and civil insurrection.
And Yes, similar to what the French have been doing in the area (mainly Chad) over the past 50 years, many would like to see a civilised nation assist the local yokels in putting Mali back together by driving out the islamist savages.
Your article makes no sense whatsoever in its juxtaposition of a handful of apparently random facts followed by a conclusion that the US was trying to install a puppet government in order to own the place. Utter bollocks.

I have no doubt your other articles are a mixture of conspiracy theory and justified indignation at the mis-deeds of US corporations.

I think we all recall that following the US invasion of Iraq, the new constitution of Iraq spelled out that union activity was synonymous with terrorism. So I think we know where US corporations stand on this.
Either way - not my problem and not my responsibility. I never cast my vote for anybody who is friends with Rupert Murdoch or Gina Rhinehardt, so I will not accept responsibility for anything that multi-national corporations get up to.

By craig thomas (not verified) on 13 Aug 2016 #permalink

Craig, please explain the reasons for colonial expansion. Why did France, Spain, Britain, Belgium, Portugal and more recently the US and China make huge inroads into Africa? If you truly and honestly think that this had/ has little to do with resource grabbing, then I seriously think you are in need of medical attention.

It is also telling that you summarily dismiss a mountain of evidence away with the simple wave of a hand using the old 'conspiracy theory' canard. I suppose that volumes of planning documents and the actual words of leading politicians like old war criminal Kissinger can also be dismissed the same way. Leading economists like Patrick Bond are also smeared with the same brush.

Of course the truth is patently obvious, you just want to camouflage your inherently biased views behind a veneer of normality. What is clear from your posts Craig is that you have not read very much. Hiding your simple linear world views behind alleged conspiracies exposes this. Moreover, your one dimensional world view suggests that countries like the United States are not imperialistic and that they possess the necessary resources within their own land mass to sustain their own ecological and carbon footprints. Anyone with half a brain realized that all of the developed countries - those Stu2 naively refers to as 'civilized' - foster large domestic resource deficits and thus need to reach beyond their own borders to obtain the necessary capital to remain wealthy. There's a huge body of well referenced literature on this as well that you, in your embarrassingly brazen ignorance, will also dismiss as a 'conspiracy'.

It appears, at least on the surface, that you are intelligent, Craig. But intelligence is not necessarily concomitant with informed. Your last posting was so utterly vacuous that I do not know where to begin deconstructing it. Let me start with three obvious truths and work from there. First, US foreign policy, at least post WWII, when the country became the most powerful in the history of humanity, is founded on three tenets: 1. Subjugation of other countries assets; 2. Nullification of alternative systems that threaten this even though they are often much more socially just; 3. Outright expansionism.

Now the evidence for these strategies driving US (and it's proxies) policy is immense. I have read plenty of declassified planning documents (those that have not been destroyed as the Reagan administration did with 1950s files describing in detail US reasons for overthrowing the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala) and the agendas in these are abundantly clear. No conspiracies in sight, just hard truths.

Before I waste any more efforts on your simple views, it's imperative for me to know that you understand even the basics of Western political agendas as laid out by state planners. If you persist with the notion that these policies are inherently benevolent and that our corporate elites have little or no interest in the resource wealth of the south, and that this plays only a superficial role in driving foreign policy, then it's clear that I might as well be communicating with an amoeba.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 14 Aug 2016 #permalink

One final demolition of your puny argument re: France. Any idea that France. a country with one of the most brazenly nauseous expansions imperialistic agendas is working to assist Mali and other African nations achieve freedom, democracy and social justice is beyond a joke. Tell that to Cameroon and other nations in Africa whose resource wealth they are suckong dry. Tell that to Haiti, which was blackmailed into coughing up 21 billion dollars to gain independence. Given that France looted a great deal of Haiti's wealth, the fact that they blackmailed this poverty stricken nation in the first place us vile enough. Subsequent attempts by Haiti to justly get this money back have been met consistently with French rebukes and refusals. I won't even go into the French record in Algeria and Indo China where the evidence is even more depressing. A French colleague at my research institute tells me with alacrity that France's foreign policy record us abominable. Trust an Australian to try and paint a pretty picture on a history of violence and plunder. The

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 14 Aug 2016 #permalink

Enough said. Excuse the typos, as I am writing this hurriedly on my mobile phone.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 14 Aug 2016 #permalink

Case in point, consider the US dislike of a more egalitarian society in Venezuela:

The Venezuelan Revolution has been a target of America since it began. Back when Chavez was in power, the USA actually funded groups to hold a coup. That temporarily worked. The USA has attempted to destroy Venezuela and its Socialist Revolution just as it has tried in Cuba for decades. The United States government is neither Left Wing nor Right Wing; It is globalist. The capitalists of New York funded the Bolsheviks in Russia with millions of dollars and endless sympathetic press because behind their facade of having an ideology, Jewish oligarchs and their gentile collaborators always choose globalism over the supposed tenets of their outward philosophies.

That article mentions Cuba, but there was also Nicaragua and Chile before that as well as interference in Argentina.

Now Craig being the good Aussie that he is should perhaps pay attention to a one genuinly good Aussie John Pilger here on East Timor.

Aargh!

Case in point, consider the US dislike of a more egalitarian society in Venezuela:

The Venezuelan Revolution has been a target of America since it began. Back when Chavez was in power, the USA actually funded groups to hold a coup. That temporarily worked. The USA has attempted to destroy Venezuela and its Socialist Revolution just as it has tried in Cuba for decades. The United States government is neither Left Wing nor Right Wing; It is globalist. The capitalists of New York funded the Bolsheviks in Russia with millions of dollars and endless sympathetic press because behind their facade of having an ideology, Jewish oligarchs and their gentile collaborators always choose globalism over the supposed tenets of their outward philosophies.

That article mentions Cuba, but there was also Nicaragua and Chile before that as well as interference in Argentina.

Now Craig being the good Aussie that he is should perhaps pay attention to a one genuinly good Aussie John Pilger here on East Timor.

"Agree re scrub, forestry"

Agree to "the greens" causing it? How?

"We don’t get our resources from the 3rd world"

Apart from Coal, Diamonds, Oil, Food, etc...

"A *minimal* amount of scepticism and critical analysis is enough to tell you that this one:...
Is a complete pile of rubbish"

A minimal amount of skepticism will tell us your claim is wild and unsupported.

@#43.
No management.
Undergrowth & fuel load out of control.
Pest species out of control. (Plant & animal).
No firebreaks.

Anyone claiming that 'greens', used in this case as a smear, determine or even profoundly influence public policy needs their head examined. Policy is almost exclusively determined across the developed world by money, and that on turn is concomitant with concentrated private power. The thrust of my point is that unregulated capitalism is by far the greatest threat to the environment and ultimately to the survival of humanity; the rest is nothing more than a puny sideshow. It is revealing here that Craig and Stu2 focus on pedantic and miss the obvious.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Aug 2016 #permalink

I can't speak for Craig but I'm focusing on the practical and the obvious.
Our native parks are an accident waiting to happen.

"@#43.
No management.
Undergrowth & fuel load out of control.
Pest species out of control. (Plant & animal).
No firebreaks."

'No management'? Years of state government cutbacks to national parks and forestry budgets haven't helped. In practise, every national park and nature reserve has a management plan and fire and load mapping ...but controlled burns are only possible when weather conditions suit, and staff available.

Then the industrial world has spent the past thirty years rejecting evidence about CO2 dumping...a spin off being enhanced plant growth > adds to management challenge and cost.

Pest species out of control , plant and animal? This is true across freehold land as well..particularly across freehold land!.
Why do we have so many feral plants? Naturalisation societies, promoted ignorance.Laissez faire capitalism acting without good knowledge and in the absence of regulation. Even now we are still importing 'domestic' plants that have weed potential, many are trialled but inadequately so. Then individuals do not always act in good faith, see aquarium trade on ebay for instance.

Firebreaks? Often useless, and an avenue for feral plants to travel in with illegal recreation vehicles, and access for wildlife pillagers.

Studies show most bushfires are escaped from private land

Nick.
I think you might benefit from yanking your head out of your computer and coming out and actually looking and talking to the land managers who border those NPs.

#50. Thank you for your cheap and clueless insult.
I'm sorry it's so expensive dealing with the outcomes of so many years of poor decision making.

Years worth of hazard reduction burns are planned in my area, on public and private land. It is up to weather conditions to make them safe to carry out.
Simplistic rants against 'native parks' aren't much help.

"@#43.
No management.
Undergrowth & fuel load out of control.
Pest species out of control. (Plant & animal).
No firebreaks".

Yeah, nothing about how the greens did that.

Maybe it was the capital owners who saw a way to cut costs. Ever think of that, moron?

Therein lies part of the issue Nick.
Land managers and farmers know how to get things done on time & work with prevailing condition.
They also know that weather is not interested in being cooperative.
Years worth of overgrowth is just an accident waiting to happen.

.

That includes traditional land managers.
I think a simplistic excuse about the weather is not much help.
If you want to protect land and water resources, letting things get years behind is not the way to go.
Australian agriculture has always worked hard to deliver on community expectations, in full & on time.

Strange how natural systems manage to sustain themselves perfectly well before humans arrived on the scene. What I glean from people like Stu2 is that human input is vital in order to properly 'manage' nature. Our species has a wonderful track record in doing so, kick-starting the 6th great planetary extinction, fragmenting and obliterating numerous habitats, moving species freely about, driving rapid climate change, dousing the planet in synthetic pesticides and reducing its capacity to sustain life through a range of provisioning services. And who is to blame for blocking this wonderful management? The green lobby!!!!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Stu2 often claims to be working with bonafide ecologists, but I get the idea that many, if not most if these are on the academic fringe. I would love to see some names attached to these 'experts'. I would question many of them based on the banal simplicity of Stu's world views.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Aug 2016 #permalink

As an example, Stu2 had me in stitches with this howler: "Australian agriculture has always worked to deliver on community expectations, in full & on time".

Where to begin deconstructing this simple observation? So many inherently basic flaws in this premise, given the real aims of industrial scale agriculture. Community has nix to do with it. I wonder if Stu2 thinks that these community expectations are what drives the private sector in becoming so involved in intensive agriculture. If he says yes, then he is even dumber than I thought previously, and that is saying a lot.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Aug 2016 #permalink

#53...you just completely ignored the fact that hazard reduction burning is facing no restrictions other than those imposed by the weather and those applied for the safety of the people who have to carry it out. Within some nature reserves and parks there are some areas where management plans want to exclude fire for sound ecological reasons, usually to attempt conserve restricted plant populations, but this does not dominate burning policy and the areas it is planned for.

Nick.
I can only repeat what I said @#50.
Jeff.
I would suggest that humans are part of the world environment.
I would also suggest that no one anywhere would argue that the world would be different if there was no such thing as humans.
Your comments @# 55 & 56 smack of misanthropy.
Both of you are advancing arguments from last century.

It's the old, "humans are part of the world environment and thus anything we do to alter the landscape, drive the planet's 6th great extinction event and undermine our own future is 'natural'". Anyone who dares argue that its insanity to assault opur own ecological life support systems is 'misanthropic'. I am sure that when toxic wastes are dumped into freshwater and marine ecosystems, or tropical forests are clear cut, or crops are soaked in presticides, this is all 'natural' in the puny world view of our Aussie scribe. I'd love Stu2 to stand in front of a scientific audience of statured conservation ecologists and for him to openly condemn them for pouring scorn on the only evolved species in the planet's history to drive a mass extinction event. He'd either be laughed off the stage or else tarred and feathered. Take your pick.

Stu2, can you get any more innane in your logic? I am also still waiting to read the names of the luminaries in environmental science and ecology who agree with your views.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Aug 2016 #permalink

When I say agree with your views, by the way, I don't mean the nobodies you often copy-paste up here as 'experts' only to find that their standing in the fields they allegedly work in is virtually non-existant. I recall one guy you claimed was an expert in coral reefs who ended up being a laughinstock with virtually no publications in peer-reviewed journals. Climate change deniers do this all the time. They are so desperate for qualified voices to join in their denial that they link to people below the academic fringe and then try and give the impression that these chumps are 'experts'.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Aug 2016 #permalink

Yep.
Definitely reeks of misanthropy with a large dose of hubris.

Sigh. Another vacuous comment from Stu2, another successful riposte, another 'debate' won. It's like picking cherries. Stu2 makes a stupid point about human destruction of many ecosystems being natural on the basis that Homo sapiens is one the world's evolved inhabitants, I easily counter it by saying that annihilation of our ecological life support systems is indefensible and plainly nuts, and all Stu2 can reply with is a pitifilul accusation that I am misanthropic.

What he really means is that I have a better education than he does in the appropriate fields and that my expertise lies in fields outside of his competence. It's clear he is profoundly shallow and that he has never read the relevant literature. The problem is that he hides his ignorance behind a veneer of jargon.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Aug 2016 #permalink

The problem is that he hides his ignorance behind a veneer of jargon.

It is the postmodernist way, it is why Brad Keyes drooled here at length some while back using lawyerly rhetoric against slowly, often painfully accrued knowledge.

Shawn Otto exposes these for what they are in his book 'The War on Science' where he mentions the 'test' used on unsuspecting postmodern publishers by Alan Sokal. Richard Dawkins also described Sokal's little ruse in his 'A Devil's Chaplain' in a chapter entitled as this extract: Postmodernism disrobed.

Malcolm Roberts has an engineering background and a mining-related employment history.
He seems to spou LaRouchian conspiracy theories.

Google Malcolm Roberts website and find his website called something like climate consciousness

He painstakingly documents his kooky harassment of politicians

Best to start with his UQ complaint.

And Jeff, Man has been burning off in Australia for many thousands of years. The present ecology is a product of this human influence. Annual "cold" Spring fires clears the underbrush and litter as well as removing diseased trees, which is a bonanza for Spring growth.
Failure to burn off results in fuel buildup and sporadic "hot" summer fires which devastate everything including baking the soil resulting in bare stone where nothing ever grows back. I am looking right now at extensive bare rock where once there were forests which were annihilated in a hot summer fire 15 years ago that was caused by idiot pseudo-greenies opposing burn offs and RFS & National Parks trying to game the funding system for fighting fires.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 20 Aug 2016 #permalink

Idiot Pseudo-greenies are not just causing a fire risk.
Their lack of management skills has also seen the rapid spread of feral pests and weeds.
They monitor it and do lots of feasability studies and write lots of papers about it all.
However, as Nick pointed out above, they don't actually get things done on time.
Way too often they don't do anything at all and spend crazy amounts of $$$ in the process of explaining why nothing was done.
Jeff meanwhile is carrying on about his self proclaimed superior education.
It is really quite childish and reminiscent of the school yard bully who forever claims that whatever he is or has is bigger and better than everyone else's.
Even traditional land managers with no tertiary education can explain that this is not rocket science Jeff.

Being an expert in one thing doesn't immunise you against faulty intuitive thinking in other fields - this is Malcolm Roberts' issue (not to mention Robert Carter and Ian Plimer).
These people are good at something, they are used to people listening to them, they are used to their professional opinions being highly regarded. Then, they discern something they see as an easy, intuitive truth and fail to realise that they haven't actually managed to successfully integrate the relevant facts.
The are so far beyond having to actually *do* undergraduate level research that they reject the idea of research entirely and imbue their intuition with magical qualities.

You same the same thing with the deluded lefties on this blog, who continue to spout nonsense against a working system of governance and infavour of a system which has proven a failure before.

By craig thomas (not verified) on 20 Aug 2016 #permalink

I have said nothing here about humans managing landscapes to enhance biodiversity. But when Stu2 opines about humans being a part of nature (true, I never said Homo sapiens wasn't), whilst apparently using this to tacitly justify our contribution (calling me misanthropic) to the latest mass extinction event and its causes: climate change, habitat destruction, facilitating plant and animal invasion, and various forms of pollution, then i draw the line.

As for the usual 'lefties' smear raised by our resident Islamophobe, since when has a truly compassionate socialism been employed in any nation that attempts to create an egalitarian world where profit maximization, wealth concentration and power have not been the primary agendas? Unfettered, unregulated capitalism has so assaulted natural systems that t has pushed many to the brink beyond which they cannot sustain themselves, as the very recent paper in science, along with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, categorically proved. If one properly chastises this system for being hardly civilized, they are tagged as ' misanthropists'. The truth is, that it is people like Jill Stein and the Green Party along with writers like Chris Hedges who are the true humanists, as they and others like me believe that we have a moral responsibility towards creating a truly sustainable society that does not aim at prioritizing investors rights and those of the privileged few.

As I said above, Stu2 (and Craig) clearly have their heads firmly planted up their butts and all the only criticisms they raise about the current rapaciously corrupt, selfish political system thrust upon the planet by the global hegemon is that it has a few inherent flaws that can be corrected. This is utter bullshit; the system is ecocidal, genocidal and isundermining the systems that act as life support. If these two twits actually read a bit more widely and especially travelled around the planet and saw what unfettered capitalism is doing to people and nature, they may wake up. We are living in the Anthropocene. Our survival is in the balance - at leas the survival of the bulk of humanity. And when I read comments by the general public in response to articles laying out the scale of the predicament - as did yesterday in an MSNBC article explaining the catastrophic loss of Arctic ice - I realize how dumbed down the general populace has been by the current educational systems and corporate-state media (the garbage Stu2 copy-pastes up here from the likes of Sky News) in place across the developed world. That an asinine idiot like Malcolm Roberts gains political prominence in Australia and thinks that he is better informed on climate than Professor Brian Cox (I saw the debate and cringed) is clear evidence that something is wrong in society. I am sure than Roberts has a groundswell of public support. Craig claims to be aware of climate change and yet supports the very economic-political system that produced, maintains and yet denies it. Go figure.

What it actually boils down to is that, far from being misanthropic, I am far and away more humanistic than Stu2 and Craig combined. If `i wasn't, I wouldn't give a rat's ass for the clear signs that humanity is headed for the abyss and would not run courses in universities challenging my students to become both better aware of the seas of disinformation of the science behind the current predicament and the inexorable link between this science and the dominant, selfish, greedy political systems that are driving it. Stu2 and other climate change deniers call me arrogant for arguing that I know miles more than they do about the relevant scientific and political fields than they do. But of course its the truth, and the truth hurts. If I am really honest here, I can say that Stu2's views of the world places him firmly in a sandbox at kindergarten.

In the previous post he tries to explain that landowners know far more about risks to their property like fire than academics do. Its the same argument used by the hunting lobby to justify the mass killing of top-level predators, or of fisherman off the Grand Banks of Canada who, despite being as thick as bags of potatoes, claim that they did not decimate stocks of cod, but that seals did much of the damage, and thus that the annual mass killing of seal pups under what they claim is 'culling' is necessary. British fisherman in the North Sea claim that they know more about the health of fish stocks than the marine biologists studying population collapses and significant losses in recruitment. Of course they don't, but this is the line that we are fed, often through our dumbed-down corporate media. Also in the UK, we are told that fox hunting is necessary to manage numbers of these meso-predators, hence why the cry of 'tally-ho!' with the baying hounds across the moors , forests and meadows must never be silenced. In North America, ranchers insisted that wolves were vermin so a full scale war was waged against these apex predators leading to their virtual elimination across the lower 48 states. The result was an explosion in white tailed deer populations and attendant lyme disease; trophic cascades clearly play an important role in limiting herbivore numbers and also in regulating plant biomass and community structure. Back to the UK, the racing pigeon fraternity has long vilified predatory birds like peregrine falcons; gamekeepers in Scotland are still killing large numbers of harriers, leading to the virtual extinction of one species.

So now, I do not place much stock in the opinions of landowners or hunters or fisherman when it comes to optimal nature management. I place my faith in rigorous science. Unlike Craig and Stu2, I AM a professional scientist.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
Reread your comment @#55.
Then @#56.
Misanthropy written all over it.
Your last comment is very amusing.
You are now also behaving like one of Orwell's pigs in 'animal farm'.
The quote goes something like.....
'Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others'?

Given your views on climate change, Stu2, and some of your other simplistic drivel, if anyone is misanthropic it's you. But I won't denigrate a term whose definition you clearly either do not understand it else are deliberately distorting to suit your own agenda. I am correct in saying that humans are so reducing biodiversity that it threatens the health, vitality and functioning of ecosystems across the biosphere. Fact. Nothing misanthropic about it. Underlying this destruction is a single dominant political system that does not recognise constraints imposed by natural systems. It's like a snake eating itself tail first.

As for your second point, that's straight out of a right wing blog or think tank. I am sure that explains why idiots like Roberts over there have such support, and why Trump appeals to so many white working class voters. It also explains why so many people adopt creationist views, claim to know more about climate science than trained experts, or else distrust scientists entirely. To be honest, like much of what you say, it's plainly stupid. Why else go to university and study a particular field if reading few books is all it takes to become an authority? Why study marine biology if working on a fishing boat for 20 years enables you to know more about the factors influencing the dynamics of fish populations than actual quantifiable research? Orwell for sure would not align himself with people like you. It's appalling that you actually suggest that he would.

You really are a dork Stu2. It's sad reading the crap you write. There are lots of like minded simpletons who think they have a real solid grounding in fields in which their understanding is superficial at best. Keep watching Sky News to learn about the world.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Aug 2016 #permalink

Signs of things to come and of a lost world. The North West Passage now navigable by cruise ships.

The muppets still fail to see the implications of this some of which are mentioned in the narrative.

As for one such muppet, I doubt Stu2 has as yet read a copy of Shawn Otto's 'The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do about It' in which Otto writes at length detailing how the false narratives have been constructed and the general public's concepts of what science is has been distorted.

#67, You're babbling now, stu2...get all that hate off your chest.
I don't think we can blame greenies for 200 years of unwise and/or accidental feral introductions... we can't blame them for contractors spreading weeds on contaminated machinery, we can't blame them for urban horticulture industry pressure to bring in the latest hot seller from the NH, we can't blame them for dumped animals, we can't blame them for aquarium trade illegality, and clients dumping their tan contents.

Weather conditions unsuitable for burnoffs is not 'greenies not getting things done on time'...it's rural fire service duty of care 101...you might remember incidents in burnoffs when volunteers lives were lost.

For crying out loud, grow up

"Therein lies part of the issue Nick."

Therein lies StuPid's lies.

"I can only repeat what I said @#50."

Repetition is not a replacement for evidence, Stupid. Can we just say Nick's response to your 50 is to be repeated here?

"Failure to burn off results in fuel buildup and sporadic “hot” summer fires"

Failure to burn off has been laid at the feet of "Greens" but nothing to indicate they are the reason for it.

"Idiot Pseudo-greenies are not just causing a fire risk."

We don't have even that pseudo greenies are causing a fire risk yet.

Only the insistence they are.

"Jeff.
Reread your comment @#55.
Then @#56.
Misanthropy written all over it."

Really?

Where?

Aye Wow @#79, Stupid's posts are squirrels all the way down.

Jeff, since you "first hand" have experienced the accelerating global warming, can you please consult with your heated spider if the Arctic will be free of ice this summer too?

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 22 Aug 2016 #permalink

Did somebody (@#81) just break wind?

OMG the serial copy cat psychopath is back. The unoriginal Swede who has to copy snd mimic insults and smears from other climate change deniers because he is too stupid to come up with his own. To the others here, the first hand spider comment was originally from Batty Betula. It was about as funny as a bad headache, but Betula and Olly have milked it to death.

Olly was one of those who once upon a time wrote endlessly about the 'hiatus' in warming. There never was one, but that didn't stop this idiot from writing about it. With the three warmest years on record occurring in a row, and with 2016 set to obliterate 2014 and 2015, he has long since abandoned this canard. Given that AGW deniers are having a rough time of it these days due to a pesky little thing called 'empirical evidence', I am surprised that this half-wit still bothers to come here. Or perhaps not. That is because their latest meme is to wheel out the global scientific conspiracy argument. Yes folks, thanks to clowns like Tony Heller aka Steven Goddard, this is their last refuge, their metaphorical 'Alamo'. Olly will no doubt be jumping onto this bandwagon, if he hasn't already.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Aug 2016 #permalink

Nick @#73.
The POLITICAL Green mmovement is not 200 years old.
There is no hate involved in my comments.
I was highlighting that the politics of 'environmentalism' has lost it's way and severely lacks practical land and water management skills.
Traditional land managers know how to work with prevailing conditions and get things done on time.
They are also capable of taking responsibility when they stuff up.
Neither of those traits are prevalent amongst the modern Green movement.
They're far more interested in laying blame on everything and everyone else.

Jeff.
You are not the only person in the world with an excellent education.
But good on you for being well educated.
Interestingly, you are more than happy to sneer at and attack other well credentialed scientists if they don't appear to agree with your political views and/or if they no longer live in the 'publish or perish' world of academia.
That was also there in your comment @#55.

Stu2, please name some of these 'credentialed scientists' who disagree with me. I have asked you before and I am asking again. When it comes to human impacts on biodiversity very, very few disagree with me.

So please do name some of them. This should be interesting.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff, like the Arctic sea ice haven't melted away has the accelrating global warming not accelrated in circus 18 years. I'm sure you are aware of that, my friend. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

It's not interesting Jeff.
I work with scientists and ecologists out here in central NSW.
Several of them have PhDs in their fields.
Some have expertise in soils, some in freshwater ecology, some in birds, some in plants & etc.
Amazingly even some of the farmers have PhDs and many more of them are tertiary educated.
2 of the scientists are world renowned.
I'm pretty sure they don't agree with most of what you rant about here.
I don't even know if they've ever heard of you.
Would you like me to ask them?

Mr. semi-literate copy-cat is farting again.

Now he has turned his hiatus to the Arctic. Does this brainless idiot never quit? This year will see ice levels drop to the 2nd or 3rd lowest on record. Next year will probably be worse, given the temporal lag in the system. Already the extent has dropped below the 95% confidence interval of the mean between 1981 and 2010 when warming was already occurring. Go back to the 1951-80 average and its an apocalypse.

We have seen 14 straight record breaking months in terms of temperature. July was the warmest in recorded history. The denier brigade is dwindling. But a few die-hards, like Olaus, persist. Once again, its all based on their political ideologies. Olaus knows diddly-shit about climate or any science for that matter, yet he sides with an intellectually vacuous group.

Says it all really.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

Stu2, I want names. You see, I don't care if these people have PhDs. I know a lot of pretty mediocre scientists with PhD degrees who have paltry publication records.

My bet is that most of the people you list have about 5-10 papers and <100 career citations of their work. That puts them in the bottom feeding class. I want to know what luminaries support the bullshit you write in here. I have predicted that few, if any, do. Put up or shut up. You know who I am. I I don't hide behind a false handle. For this reason I know that many AGW deniers and right wing shills have looked me up on the internet and perhaps even on Scopus or the Web of Science. Batty sure did. They come away disappointed, as they hope that I have few papers and citations to my name. They are wrong. I've earned my stripes and the major players in climate change - people like Mann, Trenberth, Schmidt, Hansen and Santer have earned theirs too. Despite this, I still see fringers or non-entities like GSW, Jonas, Olaus, Batty and other non-scientists attacking their expertise. At the same time they crow on about shills and/or minions like Soon, Michaels, Singer, Lindzen and a very small number of others who are either retired and not doing science any more or else who are also contaminated by their think-tank driven political ideologies.

So let's see some names.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

Want away Jeff.
I'm spectacularly uninterested in your desire to posture.
I work with these people and respect them and their achievements.
I am more than happy to ask their opinion of you if you like.
Just let me know and I'll report back.
:-)

I made my point. Stu2 won't name anybody for the simple reason that he knows that I will find their publication records are poor. He knows it. He has nothing to lose by telling me some of his scientifically elite friends and colleagues. What can I do except point out that they are not top scientists on a blog? No, Stu2 backs off because he knows darned well that he has been cornered.

Moreover, I don't give a rat's ass what his illusory elite pals think of me. I have nothing to prove. My point was made on the fact that Stu2's views on politics, science and global change in particular are pathetically simple. If truth be told, some of the things he writes up here about climate change and biodiversity are ludicrous. If his academic pals share some or many of these stupid ideas, then it explains why I suspect many if not most of them are on the academic fringe. Stu2 in his time on Deltoid has posted a number of ridiculously simple arguments on climate change, and has defended them by citing arguments put forward by non-entities whom he thinks are experts. However, when the background of said experts was examined, it was found either that the person in question had few if any peer reviewed publications to their name, were linked with a think tank or Astroturf organisation with a vested interest in denial, or both. Despite this being pointed out, instead of acknowledging his mistakes, Stu2 would hunker down and try and defend the shill pseudoscolar.

So here's some advice Stu2. You clearly don't know a whole lot about science, and certainly not environmental science. Before wading in here equipped with your Dunning-Kruger annointed views, listen to what the real experts in the field are saying. And stop parroting the corporate media as well.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

Stu2 all puff and no blow. Jerking everybody around in circles, never daring to put up and despite that won't shut up. Mr vacuous himself.

You report back with anything of substance, never been known.

Yet here those people are, working out in the real world.
They're achieving practical, measureable TBL outcomes in our communities and environments. They have helped to rehabilitate land. They have helped to educate others about best practice agriculture. They encourage and help to monitor native bird and animal species. And the list goes on and on.
They most likely don't agree with your politics Jeff Harvey. They actually respect others' achievements and others' opinions.

But for your benefit Jeff I have looked up just 3 of them.
One is an internationally recognised scientist in the field of riverine ecosystems.
One has 25 years experience as a palaeocologist.
The third has 15 years experience in ecology and wildlife conservation.
Top blokes who know how to engage rural communities and kick some goals.

& I'm guessing they don't give a 'rat's arse' about what you think of them :-)

Two points Stu2. First is that 25 years in research means nix if your colleagues publication and citation record are poor.

Second, you often come in here, as I and others like Lionel and Wow know, with some copy-pasted link downplaying AGW. Let's be clear. The overwhelming number of qualified scientists - me included - correctly consider AGW to be a major threat to both natural and managed ecosystems across the biosphere. If any of your esteemed colleagues think differently, then one has to question their ability.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

My standing in science is secure. Aside from my publication and citation records, which place me among the top 5% of my peers, I am proud to have been supported by the likes of Edward O. Wilson, Stuart Pimm, Paul Ehrlich and others with top international credentials. As for politics, Stu2s colleagues are what exactly? Regular viewers of SkyNews and ardent supporters of neoliberal policies that are driving wealth inequality and destroying the planet's ecological life support systems?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

Lastly, I respect other opinions if they are based empirically. AGW deniers do not base their opinions on empirical science because they for the most part aren't scientists or else camouflage their political agendas behind the science they hate. If Stu2 didn't so often write garbage up here about climate change, I would be inclined to listen. If any of his colleagues share his frankly wacky views on climate as well as on politics, then it simply reveals that they are ignorant as well.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Aug 2016 #permalink

For instance, we recently had Stu trying to defend the free market absolutist-deregulatory immensely destructive 'Washington Consensus' simply by parroting what the right wing economist who coined the term had written about it. All of this gobbedegook about 'trickle down effects' that never materialize (just see how Friedman/Hayak's ' shock therapy' models devastated communities across South America and Asia in their wake). Let's see what a mainstream journalist has to say about neoliberal policies and the costs of making nature and people into commodities:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/jul/24/price…

I don't always agree with Monbiot, even though he is one of the few moderate dissenters who the corporate mainstream media 'allow' into their ranks. For every Monbiot the system stacks dozens of establishment hacks against them, ensuring that the lone dissenter is effectively drowned out and that, by sheer volume, his or her views are seen as being outside of the 'sensible' mainstream view.

The crux of the matter is that capitalism - at least the current form of it - is seriously harming the planet and undermining he future for humanity. For saying this obvious fact I have been called 'mistanthropic' by good old Stu2 because it clashes with his SkyNews/mainstream media education.

This is how out supine state-corporate media works and Monbiot knows it, but he rarely if ever speaks about it in the knowledge that you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Aug 2016 #permalink

jeffie hardley, all bullshit

try again

you should take psychotherapy to overcome your "corporate" anxiety

Kim, your comment has Olaus Petri written all over it. Methinks you might be a sock puppet. Nothing new for your sordid lot.

Furthermore, it's clear from this pathetic post that you are profoundly ignorant. I suggest you do some elementary reading to attain at least some primary school level knowledge.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
It's your politics that's the problem.
With a good dose of hubris.
You forever argue that the only way to save the planet is to dismantle our political systems and that the majority of scientists agree with you.
No they don't.
They agree that humans must learn from their mistakes and take better care of our environment.
Meanwhile, many of us who care deeply about our environment are out here working with rural and regional
communities and actually making a difference.

Stu2, don't ever patronise me. You do not have a clue what the majority of scientists think, nor do you have a remote idea of the scale of the predicament facing humanity. Since when, amongst your many other non talents, did you obtain telepathic powers? The vast majority of environmental scientists, at least those who are among the leaders in their field of research, are all too aware that our species is staring into an abyss of our own creation. For that matter, so do a growing number of economists. They just don't spend a lot of time talking about it. Historians like Tainter and Redman gave chronicled the collapse of past civilisations. The present one is headed the ssme way except that thus time we are taking much the planet down with us.

The carnage if a dying political system are evident everywhere if you bothered to look. The US vomits up a repugnant candidate like Donald Trump as a direct result of failed neoliberal policies foisted onto the public by Obama, Bush, Clinton and other recent Presidents. The major problem with populists like Trump is that they speak to a disenfranchised populace by not blaming bankrupt political and economic system which is to blame, but by arguing that immigrants and Muslims are the root cause for increasing despair.

Capitalism, or at least the current incarnation of it, is destroying our ecological life support systems at a terrifying rate while pursuing global policies aimed primarily at rewarding transnational elites. TPP, TTIP and other alleged trade agreements like NAFTA (they are not actually trade agreements but aim to ensure investors rights) are just the latest nails in the coffin aiming to ensure that our political systems serve the proper masters.

Thanks to your vapid ignorance, Stu2, I even assigned one of my Master's students a literature review and essay to define the term 'civilization' and to evaluate whether our allegedly democratic countries are really 'civilized', focusing on ourvexploitation if natural systems across the biosphere in terms of sustainability. Given that the current dominant political-economic system us responsible for driving a mass extinction event along with climate change and other environmental destruction, actions that threaten our future survival, I think it's clear that the developed world leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to being 'civilized'. My student ID very excited about the assignment and I think there is every chance that a revised version can be published in a peer reviewed journal.

The bottom line is that debating the link between the current dominant social-political system with you and it's environmental record at large scales us a complete waste of my time simply because you are so profoundly ignorant.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2016 #permalink

... to those who support me, please excuse typos but this is the peril of using a not so smartphone. ...

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2016 #permalink

And yet.
Here we are making an actual difference.
:-)
Out here we work with real people and real communities and we mostly ignore the politics.

Moreover, one has to love Stu2s ability to underestimate a global crisis. "We must learn from our mistakes". This sounds like a sound byte or Pentagon press release in evaluating the outcome of the US-proxy invasion of Iraq. Our pathetic, lying corporate-state media never ascribe crimes to our actions. At worst, we make 'mistakes'; crimes are restricted to officially designated enemy states like Iran, Syria, Russia and China.

Let's be clear here. Our allegedly 'civilized' 'democracies' (quotations added because these properties are not in my opinion a given) commit immense crimes in pursuit of nakedly political and economic agendas and in full knowledge of the implications in terms of the loss of human life and destruction to both the civilian and environmental infrastructures of the lands they invade and occupy.

The current destruction of natural systems for short term profit that primarily benefits the privileged few is not a mistake. It's a calculated process carried out in full knowledge that it threatens the medium to long term survival of our species and many others across the biosphere. In that context it's a vast crime. And whereas there are those like Stu2 who think that we can work within this selfish, ecocidal system in ways to correct the immense damage that it is doing, there are many others finally waking up to realise that the system is essentially so corrupted by greed and power that it cannot be reined in. It is broken beyond repair. The very fact that banks and corporations determine US policy across the board proves this. The US has long ceased being a representative democracy and is now a fully fledged plutocracy. Why are fossil fuel corporations investing billions in lobbying governments, funding think tanks and AstroTurf groups to downplay or even deny climate change, and thus waging a propaganda war to influence public opinion? How informed is the general public about un/anti democratic bodies like the WTO, IMG, WB and the agendas they support?

Judging by you, Stu2, not a whole lot.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2016 #permalink

IMF...

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2016 #permalink

"Did somebody (@#81) just break wind?"

Hoof Hearted.

"Jeff, like the Arctic sea ice haven’t melted away "

It has. And been replaced. That's what happens when it warms: more ice melts and in winter it refreezes, but doesn't build up.

Whilst in a growing ice age, the ice doesn't melt and DOES build up.

You really need to work out what is going on lappers.

"can you please consult with your heated spider "

Want away, lappers. Apparently this is sufficient. YOU didn't make a complaint about it, anyway. PS why this complete fabrication?

"Want away Jeff."

IOW "I've been lying my arse off and don't want to tell you".

"I’m spectacularly uninterested in your desire to posture."

You're only interested in your desire to posture, right?

"Yet here those people are, working out in the real world."

People you cannot name, but merely insist they exist and have PhDs, as if that means something to you.... And if YOU don't buy the standing of PhDs, why should we buy your insistence that some undefined PhDs exist?

"Moreover, one has to love Stu2s ability to underestimate a global crisis. “We must learn from our mistakes”"

Rather pointless coming from someone who will refuse to admit any were made... StuPid and the various socks of lappers insist that capitalism has made no mistakes, that christianity made none, that industrialisation has made none and the free market cannot ever make mistakes that don't get rectified by "the invisible hand".

When StuPid et al refuse to admit to a mistake, how are we supposed to adapt or learn from them?

Thanks Lionel for this link. Now it doesn't require that much intelligence to be able to put 2 and 2 together. The facts are these whether Stu2 likes it or not: humanity is pushing many ecosystems across the biosphere towards a point beyond which they will be unable to effectively function. As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment published back in 2006 showed, s combined human assault has drastically reduced the supply of several key ecosystem services upon which our so called civilisation depends. That was a decade ago. If anything, since then we've gone in reverse despite being fully aware of the direction in which we are heading. Indeed, scientists raised the alarm about the destruction bring wrought on nature as far back as the late 70s, and yet thus fact has been ignored. The World Scientists Warning to Humanity, published to coincide with the World Biodiversity Summit in 1992, and signed by over 70% of the living Nobel Laureates at the time, starkly argued that humans and the natural world are on a collision course. The document went on to state that urgent changes were needed to avoid the dire consequences of this collision.

So what gas happened in the quarter century since then? As I stated, we have continued to embrace neoliberal policies and to deregulate economies, effectively putting more power into the hands of the corporate elites. We have see. a global political swing to the right, embracing governments that see environmental protection as an impediment to economic growth, investors returns and corporate profits. Instead if protecting biodiversity, much of it has fallen under patent rights in which genes and whole species become intellectual property. And along with that we gave seen an increase in the concentration of wealth and absolute poverty.

People like Stu2 think that it's possible work within this rapacious and blatantly unsustainable system and to tweak a policy here and a program there and everything will turn out just fine. The reality is that this is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. Moreover, those controlling wealth and power like things the way that they are. Indeed, through various means - such as by forcing 'free trade' agreements (agreed among the wealthy as the general populations are excluded from these decisions) that have nothing to do with trade and everything to do with investors rights, they are consolidating their power.

In order to ensure that capital flows remain primarily uni-directional (that is, from the poor south to the rich north), they - meaning primarily the global hegemon and it's proxies - are expanding their military reach through the construction of military bases across Africa (African) South America (Southcom) and elsewhere.

The continued destruction and loss of tropical forests, other terrestrial ecosystems, wetlands, marine and freshwater ecosystems is not stopping or even slowing. Time is running out. If we don't ditch this current system and replace it altogether with something more humane, sustainable and based at the very least on steady state economics, then we are finished. Tweaking the present system will not work.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
People like me ARE working within systems and they ARE making a difference.
Your touted political solutions, by your own admission above, are not making any difference.
There is no evidence anywhere that dismantling social systems via revolution is good for the environment.
There is, however, plenty of evidence that it's bad for the environment.

Stu, you are such a silly clot. Why do I even waste my breath with someone whose grasp if realise so utterly simple?

My political solutions are not touted by anyone with the power to change anything; nor are they being put into practice simply because those holding the reins of power also by and large control the media and also ensure that the system prioritizes their agendas. I am also not advocating a Russian style revolution but an urgent transformation to a much more humane, egalitarian political system is, in my opinion, essential if we are to make it as a species through the bottleneck that unregulated capitalism and the neoliberal order has created. We cannot work within this ecocidal, selfish system and hope to create a sustainable, just world.

I am in no way belittling your efforts it those of your colleagues. However, these efforts will not be nearly enough to counter the devastation of a system that is literally tearing the planet apart for profit. If we do not get rid of this system in the coming decades, then, to quote Chris Hedges, we are doomed. It is already clear from empirical research that the planet has a reduced capacity to support humanity, yet the unrepentant assault on nature continues.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Aug 2016 #permalink

grasp of reality... smartphone again folks...

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Aug 2016 #permalink

I would suggest the following is an apt assessment of Stu2:

"...whose grasp if reality is so utterly tenuous."

Yes Lionel. Exactly. Your link yesterday to the Science articles put the direness of the situation into perspective. The empirical literature contains msny thousands of studies saying the same thing. Humanity is in deep trouble. Here is another appropriate analogy for Stu2s approach. Several years ago I was invited by the British Council to participate in a one day workshop with students examining the topic of adaptation to climate change. I disagreed with this approach because I argued that we do not yet possess - and almost certainly never will - the technology to counter the profound harm on a range of ecosystem services caused by AGW.

I argued that mitigation must be the focus of human strategies if we were to avoid a calamity. Still, the adaptation theme went ahead. One of the speakers from Leiden University have a seminar detailing the technologies being developed to deal with increasing sea level. She proudly exclaimed that new technologies csn deal with rising sea levels for the next 50 years at least and perhaps longer. During questioning, I said that her talk was a good metaphor for giving a patient with serious pneumonia better tissues to blow their nose, but that it failed to deal with the underlying disease. She was angry and asked if I thought it was stupid to work on technologies aimed at dealing with rising sea levels. I said not at all, but I forcefully replied that humanity must deal with the disease - the enormously destructive capacity of the human enterprise - if we are to survive.

The disease is also evident in fraying food webs, collapsing ecosystems and the current mass extinction event in which climate change is a major driver. Therefore, failure to rein in the destruction inflicted upon nature by our unsustainable and inhumane neoliberal systems means that new technologies will not only just delay the inevitable, but that they also lull us into a false sense of security.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Aug 2016 #permalink

Hardley "... collapsing ecosystems ..."

hahahaha, what a good joke. It's about your salary ...

I found the following final statement in this abstract rather troubling:

...minimize losses of socially valued ecosystem services.

Why? As is clear from the comments that we get from the trollerati here, society in general has no concept of ecosystem services in the first place.

Why? As is clear from the comments that we get from the trollerati here, society in general has no concept of ecosystem services in the first place.

And whilst I was typing that the evidence to support that was coming in at #21, need I say more?

Kim is almost certainly one of the Swedish meatball's sock puppets, given he is copycatting Batty again. What do we know about him?

Aside from his appalling grammar, he is not a scientist in any way, shape or form. He also tends not to read the empirical literature because, 1) he doesn't understand it, and 2) virtually all of it has produced results which are contrary to his denier schooled ideas.

In other words he is an idiot. No news there.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Aug 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
You continually belittle the efforts of others.
Humanity continues to progress towards better systems.
It's a natural human condition to progress.

Lionel and I might as well be writing to a wall. That's why debating and discussing relevant contemporary issues with people whose views are utterly simple and devoid of knowledge is really a waste of time.

So here's where we are. The scientific evidence, based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies in a wide range of journals, reveals that natural systems are in deep trouble. Species and genetic diversity has been so reduced that many of the planets ecosystems are barely able to sustain themselves. Humanity has been effectively waging a war of attrition on nature, taking significantly more out of these systems than they can sustainably replace.

A range if anthropogenic factors are responsible for this assault, with climate change and habit destruction best the top. Despite being aware of an imminent collision between man and nature for over 30 years, if anything our species has gone in reverse, swinging to the right politically, deregulating the global economic system and ths accelerating the rate of damage. It's all there in scientific journals that Stu2 does not read. All we get are fictional nonsensical quips lacking any empirical foundation saying that 'hunanity continues to progress towards better systems '.

This simpleton would have fitted well among the optimists aboard the Titanic as the great liner listed shortly below sliding beneath the waves. Effectively, Stu2 and others like him are playing the ignorance gambit. That is, as long as we remain mired in our own ignorance, everything will be alright. I would gladly debate Stu when I next visit Australia, because I truly think it is important to expose the danger that people like him - particularly influential ones in the political arena - pise to society. Of course I would annihilate him, but I would do it in a way that at least gives hope, but only on the basis of the fact that radical changes are imperative if we are to get through the bottleneck we gave created.

Stu2 and his ilk are naive, dumbed down 'tweakers' who, in their simple linear world views, think that humanity is on track towards a prosperous future while the metaphorical train ob which our species is a passenger has long since left the rails. He lacks the relevant expertise and is clearly limited in his sources of information. Reading his posts this is obvious.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Aug 2016 #permalink

No, ya not writing to a wall.
There are many who concur with
much of what you say.

#21 is just so much blindness.
Wilful, stupid, arrogant...

Humanity continues to progress towards better systems.

Not so, especially over recent decades humanity has taken big steps back for reasons described in Shawn Otto's book 'The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do about It' with which you refuse to engage. You clearly cannot stomach the truth not only about the state of biospheres but about how the masses have been dumbed down preventing rational assessment of the situation.

It’s a natural human condition to progress.

So that's how we throw up a Donald Trump and a Nigel Farage is it? That is more like regression.

You blokes are parroting political parochial nonsense.
Even your analogies are becoming desperate.
No one anywhere is arguing that the planet wouldn't be different if there was no such thing as humans.

Lionel.
I'm no fan of either Trump or Farage or numerous other political leaders and commentators.
However, unlike you apparently, I believe in everyone's right to free speech, to education, to basic services &etc, and therefore the freedom to voice opinions.
I also think that when sufficiently educated, humanity has an uncanny knack of muddling through and hence progressing to better functioning social systems.
In no way does that even remotely mean that everything is perfect.
However, some systems have proven they have a better track record in facilitating progress, including education about environmental responsibility and sustainability.
I therefore disagree with some of the social theories put up by the likes of Jensen, Hedges, Otto et al even though I would argue for their rights to voice their opnions.

Stu makes the understatement of the century when he acknowledges that things are far from perfect. What the empirical evidence proves is that humanity is headed towards an abyss if it's own making, in which our species not only seems intent on writing it's own epitaph but on taking much of the planets biodiversity down with us. Then he stated that some systems have better track records than others with respect to sustainability without explicitly saying what those systems are.

Let me tell him which one isn't. Capitalism. Indeed, its track record in this capacity is abominable. The evidence proves this categorically. Every developed nation on the planet maintains a significant ecological deficit, meaning that they depend on external resources and capital to maintain their current level of affluence. This fact is beyond doubt. Moreover, the single agenda of capitalism is to maximise profits and investors returns. It is therefore a pathological political system and one which can only persist in a world of infinite resources. Our planet is a closed system.

Lastly, Stu says that he disagrees with the writings of Hedges, Otto, Jensen and like minded scholars and pundits. The problem is that he has never read their works and therefore bases this on his own confirmation bias. Secondly, they defend their arguments with empirical facts whereas Stu's beliefs are based solely on faith in markets and on outdated neoclassical economic theory that he also knows virtually nothing about.

One must therefore ask themself why Stu writes in here even after his points are continually debunked. I will praise him for his blind optimism in the face of reality, but his indoctrinated belief in a decaying system reveals in a way why our species id in such trouble.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

However, unlike you apparently, I believe in everyone’s right to free speech, to education, to basic services &etc, and therefore the freedom to voice opinions.

You have a damned nerve, of course I believe that everyone has a right to education. But the catch with opinions is that not all have equal weight. Some could be fact based, here we link back to adequate education, and therefore valid, others not so much and we see plenty of that latter from your direction with this latest post of yours being a classic example in its simplistic mode of thought.

I therefore disagree with some of the social theories put up by the likes ...Otto et al even though I would argue for their rights to voice their opnions.

Have you read Otto's book as suggested? I rather think not for if you had you may not have posted this latest bilge. If you don't know Otto's arguments as expressed in that book, then how can you possibly opine on them with any honesty.

You are not in the same volume as Jeff and I let alone on the same page!

Hardley 32: "bla bla bla ... Our planet is a closed system. bla bla bla ."

Bullshit, Hardley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bullshit Hardley, !!!!!!!!!

Our planet is an OPEN system and in full exchange with space, idiot!!!!!!

Also, why always "humanity, humanity humanity, humanity": learn English and better grammar, idiot: MANKIND is your word

Our planet is an OPEN system and in full exchange with space, idiot!!!!!!

You dolt. The context of Jeff's statement WRT this planet being a closed system is absolutely true. From which part of the universe are extra resources in the form of working ecosystems of the form we have on Earth going to come, smart &r$e?

Nothing wrong with the use of the word 'humanity', not for anybody with half a brain and a decent education, both of which you appear to lack.

Jensen, Hedges & Otto all condone violence in varying degrees.
I question the 'fact base' of that.
The 'facts' show that dismantling societies via revolution is not good for the environment.
The 'facts' also indicate that facilitating more and more and more legislation with associated bureaucies is not helping the environment either.
I think Jeff also needs to clarify his definition of 'ecological deficit'.
Any living creature could create an 'ecological deficit' simply by being born and using earth's nutrients, water & air.

To be blunt.
There's no evidence that a 'socialist' regime, especially those formed via violent revolution, have been kinder to 'the environment'.
Even Hitler was an early advocate of 'animal welfare'. He was also a widely read author.

More political ideology.
It is a fact that developed, capitalist, West Germany developed a world-leading Greens movement and successfully addressed many serious environmental issues such as acid raid and water pollution.
By contrast, the un-developed socialist workers' paradise in East Germany had no Green movement whatsoever and despite the backward state of its industry, it had devastating problems with pollution - both in its cities as well as its soil, air and water.

It is amply clear that capitalism leads to prosperity and progress. The alternatives have already proven themselves failures.

Also, check out this pin-point accurate bombing attack on an ignorant f!ckwit:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cp90meHXYAADM3w.jpg:large

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

Kim aka Olaus, since when has large numbers of biota entered our planet from outer space? Ecosystems across the biosphere ate closed systems. No ands, ifs.or buts. If we somehow wipe out 95% of biodiversity across the planet, I don't expect that input from space to miraculously compensate for it.

You clearly are a textbook case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Lastly, my use of humanity is appropriate. What your posts conclusively prove is that your education is, let me say, basal. In less colloquial terms, piss off you moron.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

Craig is at it again with his willfull ignorance and hypocrisy. Clearly cause and effect are not connected in his mind. Yes, capitalism - at least earlier incarnations of it - have benefited a relatively small percentage of people across the developed world. But at what cost? We are now reaping what we have sown. The system has run amok, like a snake eating itself tail first. The consequences of the new post Reagan form of capitalism are evident in the current mass extinction, immense destruction of natural systems across the biosphere and climate change. Capital flight, vast inequalities of wealth and endless wars are all deeply symptomatic of capitalism in its current neoliberal form. Humanity is headed for an abyss of its own making, and much if this is due to our inability to rein in a system that is literally going to kill us. In the US, corporations control every lever of government to ensure that their interests - and not those of the general public - are prioritized. If properly regulated, capitalism csn work. But the system has been effectively let off if the leash in the past 35 years with abominable consequences.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

Stu, get your facts straight. Chris Hedges is a pacifist and has never condoned violence. You have never read his works so how dare you try an define his beliefs! He is so far above you intellectually that I am actually incredulous in having to set the record straight here. I know I am wasting my time trying to engage in intelligence discourse with people lacking even a basic foundation of knowledge about the way the world works and I have many more important things on my plate. Your posts are so utterly myopic that I find it exasperating to respond.

Your failure to comprehend even the basics of ecological footprint analyses is further evidence of your ignorance. Your riposte was actually so simple that it was funny. By deficit I mean that the wealthy developed nations are unable to support their populations on resources contained within their own land masses. This includes both consumption and waste production, meaning that our nations must teach beyond their own borders to obtain the capital necessary to maintain their affluence as currently defined. The Netherlands, for example, would have to be as large as France to be sustainable. Britain consumes three to four times as many resources as it's own land mass can produce. Place our countries under plastic bubbles in which no inputs or outputs are possible and our economies would implode within a year.

This explains why the US and its proxies require endless wars and support vile regimes across the world. Western planners know full well that our affluence depends on the continued flow via looting of critical resources from poor, less developed nations. It also explains why the current system is destroying the planet.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

So many typos. My lousy smartphone. Reach, not teach. Intelligent, not intelligence. Etc.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Aug 2016 #permalink

One final point in response to Stu2, once again pointing out the immense hypocrisy of his views.

He argues that Otto, Jensen and Hedges (incorrectly) advocate violence in achieving political change.

What on Earth does he think that the United States and its supine proxies have been doing to the environment and t the poor across the planet to ensure that the neoliberal order and control of wealth remains intact? As Jensen poignantly argues in Endgame, our 'civilization' employs - indeed depends on - the use of widespread and persistent violence against nature and against the poor to obtain the necessary resources to maintain our position of economic and political hegemony. When influential neocons like Wolfowitz, Cheney, Kagan, Kristal, Ledeen and Perle talk about the US engaging in 'endless wars' they are not referring to battles for civilization but for the United States to retain its preeminent position in the world order. These wars are fought primarily to promote the interests of US banks and corporations abroad.

Planners like George Kennan have made the same point. In 2003, Kennan, by then a very elder statesman, expressed his 'fear' that the new nationalism arising in South America threatened the flow of 'our resources' - 'ours' being the term used for resources that just do happen to be located in other countries but which Kennan thought were the rightful property of US investors. Chomsky has written widely about this. Essentially, the US owns the world, and any nations or peoples that resist this are legitimate targets. Hence the use of widespread and appalling levels of violence by 'our side' in ensuring that the neoliberal order is not threatened.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 30 Aug 2016 #permalink

It is amply clear that capitalism leads to prosperity and progress. The alternatives have already proven themselves failures.

What Craig fails to mention, even if he appreciates the point, is that alternatives to capitalism fail for one of two reasons.

Improperly implemented

or

undermined by outside agencies.

Both of which factors can be laid at the door of US (and their allies if unwillingly so at times) foreign policy. The Americas, Central and Southern, can provide numerous examples.

Jensen, Hedges & Otto all condone violence in varying degrees.

Writes the cretin who has never read the key source material relying upon 'interpreters of interpretations' for his world view.

It is really not worth the effort discussing with this one further this is why I maintain a policy of not answering him directly whilst writing about him.

"Jeff.
People like me ARE working within systems and they ARE making a difference."

Yes, and you ARE making it worse, and ensuring it won't get better.

You ARE one of those rapists, and yes, you are making a difference and are working within the system that lets you act against the future of humanity.

"Jeff.
You continually belittle the efforts of others."

Rather rich coming from you, StuPid.

"You blokes are parroting political parochial nonsense."

This too is immensely ironic from StuPid.

"However, unlike you apparently, I believe in everyone’s right to free speech, to education, to basic services &etc, and therefore the freedom to voice opinions."

Ah, so everyone is allowed the free speech, except the freedom to berate and insult those you are "no fan of", yet whose toxic and idiotic rhetoric you spout every opportunity (and even when there is no such opportunity if you haven't released your bile against "the left" sufficiently recently).

You see, unlike you, I DO NOT INSIST THAT YOU CAN'T SAY INSULTING WORDS TO MORONS.

It's called "freedom of speech".

Teabaggers and the facist idocracy, however, love to shoot dead people who are to the left of them. Actions, not words, and actions that you ignore ever happened.

" Our planet is an OPEN system and in full exchange with space, idiot!!!!!!"

Really? So plants float up out into interplanetary space now????

"It is a fact that developed, capitalist, West Germany developed a world-leading Greens movement and successfully addressed many serious environmental issues such as acid raid and water pollution."

It is NOT a fact that the characteristic of "capitalist" is the REASON they produced a world leading Greens movement.

Moreover, the second part shows how greens have produced benefit. I thought they only caused massive forest fires?

Is it the social democracy nature of West Germany that caused this green movement? Much more likely than capitalism did.

"By contrast, the un-developed socialist workers’ paradise in East Germany"

By contrast, how do you know they were un-developed or a "socialist workers' paradise", other than the vapid toxic bile from rightwingnutjobs who wouldn't know socialism if it bit their pencildicks off?

Since processed foods are cheap and have therefore helped feed a large number of people and make them healthier, he must think that eating MORE processed foods should make us EVEN MORE HEALTHY and not obese, as appears to be the case.

Wow and Lionel,

A million thanks for demolishing the repeated nonsense of the Bobbsy twins (Craig and Stu2). Craig's inability to link global environmental destruction with the current bastardized form of capitalism (e.g. free market absolutism and deregulation) is akin to someone with serious lung cancer and emphyzema ranting on about the wonders of cigarettes. The main economic force that has produced runaway climate change, the current mass extinction event and which has pushed ecosystems to the brink is capitalism. I am not saying that if the CEOs and the corporations and the banks were heavily regulated, then capitalism with a small c might just work. But, thanks to Reagan, Thatcher and the heads of governments across the west that followed them, liberal and conservative alike, Democrat and Republican, the horse has been let out of the barn and is running amok. The system is psychopathic and recognizes no limits to the damage it is inflicting, at least until well after the damage has become irreparable.

In the myopic world views of Craig and Stu2, the only alternative to the current predatory form of capitalism is state capitalism aka communism under the old guise. There are no alternatives to these two systems as far as they are concerned. Brian Czech in 2000 published a great book entitled 'Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train' which outlined the immense damage being done to the environment by the big C form of rapacious capitalism which adopted neoclassical economic theory as its guiding principle. By now neoclassical economics is dying or at least it should be, because it is being increasingly realized that the three foundations underpinning it: (1) unlimited substitutability; (2) efficiency; (3) human ingenuity - are not working. Resources cannot be forever depleted before mving onto new ones (as we know from the pulp and paper industries in the US, the whaling industry which moved through the baleen whales one by one, and water, of which there is no substitute. Our economic system is not becoming efficient fast enought to counter the damage it is doing, and humans do not yet and probably never will possess the technologies necessary to replace most vital ecoystem services.

All of the empirical evidence proves categorically that humans are living off of natural capital rather than income. Every major ecosystem across the biosphere is in decline. More and more economists are waking up to the fact that the Julian Simon/Bjorn Lomborg economic model is outdated rubbish. Hence the push by many new conomists towards a steady state approach that unsurprisingly is being fiercely resisted by many major transnational corporations who are anxious to suck the planet dry and worry about the consequences later.

Again, its great to know that there are some well informed people out there with common sense to battle the ignorant trolls.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 30 Aug 2016 #permalink

Craig @#38.
Historically sound.
Social progress facilitates environmental responsibility.
Societies that struggle economically don't have the werewithal to care for their environment.
I think some of the commenters here would benefit from some travel and some history education.
My country, Australia, is developed and is not in 'ecological deficit' (of course depending on the definition)
Plenty of other 'developed' nations are the same.
Jeff is confusing 'venture capitalism' with 'capitalism'.
The former is rapacious and makes money out of thin air.

"Historically sound'" says our resident politically illiterate hack.

He is describing a system that exports its environmental damage and which has pushed ecosystems to the brink. He is parroting bullshit from know nothings like Bjorn Lomborg that once societies become afluent, they move to protect their environment. Try telling this to communities across the United States whose water supplies have been contiminated by PCBs and other chemicals and also through the by-products of fracking. Try tell this to a country that is a net importer of pulp and paper because its eastern white pine, southern loblolly pine, western redwood and douglas fir trees were unsustainably cut. Try explaining why an increasing number of temperate vertebrate speices are on local and national endangered species lists. Try explaining why little is being done by the rich nations to combat climate change. The questions are endless.

Stu2 then says that Australia does not foster an ecological deficit. Neither does Canada, Sweden or Finland. That's where it ends; all the other developed nations on Earth have ecological deficits and in the United States, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Greece the deficit is enormous - 100-250 times greater than biocapacity.

What Stu also fails to even comprehend is that nations'that struggle economically are often doing so because they are being suppressed/plundered/looted by developed nations and their corporations. Heck, this is obvious or should be. Look at Africa. Right now its being looted by just about every developed nation along with China. As for benefitting from travel and history education, Stu2 is correct. He certainly has not read as much as I have nor has he traveled as much. His comments are so utterly linear and one-dimensional that its often hard for me to knwo where to start tearing them down. His world is an illusion. It doesn't exist. He talks about condemining violence when the current dominant economic political system depends of the widespread and persistent use or threat of violence to sustain itself.

So much for Stu's latest vacuous arguments. Easy to demolish every time. He's a nitwit.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 31 Aug 2016 #permalink

I think some of the commenters here would benefit from some travel and some history education.

Whoever said irony is dead, the following in the mode of Stu2:

One for Stupid

I have travelled (latterly because of infirmity by copious reading across a swath of topics) and have read much history especially of imperial ventures by developed nations. Also of the US, India and China and have studied the history of civilisations from around 10K Y BCE across continents from South America to Asia. India with the Vedic and then the Ashoka and Mauryan Empires, China from the neolithic period are particularly fascinating. Look up what happened to the civilisations in the Indus Valley including the Mohenjo-Daro, Harrapa and Ganweriwala cities (the root of civilisation itself) for how climate change can cause apocalyptic, for those cities, changes in waterflow.

Those combined with the often bloody history of civilisations in the Near and Middle East are not unconnected with climate change a message which knits in with the work of William F Ruddiman, often mentioned here but clearly flew over Stu-pid's head.

This theme has recently been picked up in a number of places including at Peter Sinclair's excellent blog.

Strewth, if only Stupid would only take his own advice.

I think some of the commenters here would benefit from some travel and some history education.

Sheeesh! Whoever said irony is dead?

I have travelled (latterly because of infirmity by copious reading across a swath of topics) and have read much history especially of imperial ventures by developed nations. Also of the US, India and China and have studied the history of civilisations from around 10K Y BCE across continents from South America to Asia. India with the Vedic and then the Ashoka and Mauryan Empires, China from the neolithic period are particularly fascinating. Look up what happened to the civilisations in the Indus Valley including the Mohenjo-Daro, Harrapa and Ganweriwala cities (the root of civilisation itself) for how climate change can cause apocalyptic, for those cities, changes in waterflow.

Those combined with the often bloody history of civilisations in the Near and Middle East are not unconnected with climate change a message which knits in with the work of William F Ruddiman, often mentioned here but clearly flew over Stu-pid's head.

This theme has recently been picked up in a number of places including at Peter Sinclair's excellent blog.

Strewth, if only Stupid would only take his own advice.

"Craig @#38.
Historically sound."

About as historically sound as proclaiming that Hitler merely wanted germany put back together, nothing more.

"Social progress facilitates environmental responsibility."

Yeah, but what does that have to do with your obsession over the holy writ of capitalism??? Social progress != Capitalism.

"Societies that struggle economically don’t have the werewithal to care for their environment."

And societies that struggle against capitalist rapine politics don't have the werewithal to care for their environment. You're still failing to connect capitalism to your "it's good to be environmental" BS screed.

"My country, Australia, is developed and is not in ‘ecological deficit’ (of course depending on the definition)"

So it might or might not be, in reality.

Odd, though, it's fucking up the ecology for a quick buck, right now, and unable to stop capitalism pissing in the pool and demanding that someone else clean it up.

"Plenty of other ‘developed’ nations are the same."

Yeah, but we're still neither connecting it to capitalism doing this and whether these countries ARE in fact cleaning the environment.

All you have provided are platitudes, nothing like the links and data Jeff and Lionel have supplied.

"Jeff is confusing ‘venture capitalism’ with ‘capitalism’."

A new claim, but one manufactured out of thin air and with nothing to explain what, if it were to be true, it would mean to Jeff's evidence and claims.

"The former is rapacious and makes money out of thin air."

So what? Where do we have "capitalism without venture capitalism"???

Nowhere.

So it might me nice to have the capitalism on whatever woo-woo planet YOU pretend to inhabit, but here on this planet earth, our capitalism is what you claim to be "venture capitalism".

Jeff.
Reread your comments @#32 & #56?
Which is it?
Every developed nations or not?
You have named 4 that aren't, but there are more are there not?
No one here is defending rapacious political behaviour, regardless of which 'ism' it may be.
Societies based on democratic principles have the better track record regarding environmental responsibility.
That actually includes the US if economic investment and policies are counted.

Jensen most definitely condones violence and Hedges and Otto are obsessed with terminology that can and does incite violence
The language is remarkably reminiscent of and similarly coloured emotionally and similarly hyperbolic as past leaders and authors including good old Adolf.
Contrary to your assertions otherwise, I have read some of their work.
I'm simply not as impressed as you are.
However, everyone, including Jensen, Hughes and Otto are entitled to their opinions and have the freedom to express them.

And Jeff @#54.
Have a look at Wow's comment @#46 and Lionel's Orwellian comment @# 33.
You're thanking them?
Seriously?

Stu2 once again demonstrates the limits of his ability with comprehension.

One thing Stu2 fails to comprehend is that the number of societies based upon real democracy are precious few to none - elements of the media help see to that take the Brexit vote for one instance. Once again a population is high jacked by lies and deception.

Another comprehension fail for Stu2 is the meaning of Orwellian.

Lionel.
Define 'real democracy'.
Then explain your comment @#33
:-)

Lionel, as I said, we are dealing with a fellow whose thinking comes straight out of the sand box. He evidently thinks that the rich, developed countries are bastions of 'civilization' that embrace true demoeby the people and for the people. He probably thinks that the global hegemon and leading terrorist state (no formal identification needed) is s true representative democracy. He has never heard of the terms 'managed democracy' or plutocracy, and I would assume dismisses any notion that corporations play a major role in determining the outcome of elections and/or policies. He also probably thinks that the current bastardised form if capitalism called neoliberalism is a great system with s few minor flaws.

As far as protecting the environment, the track record of capitalism is abominable. Hardly surprising, given the bottom line, but expect our Aussie blockhead to disagree. Populations of many songbirds across the Nearctic and Palaearctic realms are in free fall as our those of many amphibians. Chock it up as another miraculous success story for capitalism. NOT. Truth is, we export much of our ecological damage to countries of the south whose resources we plunder.

With respect to ecological footprints, the only reason the four nations I mentioned have small surpluses is because they have small populations on relatively large land masses. Every other developed nation fosters a deficit, and in most of these countries it us huge. The United States, Germany, Holland and Britain have massive deficits. It explains why these countries support neoliberal economic policies where they can loot and plunder with impunity.

Lastly, given the appalling track record of the US, Britain and Australia in waging wars and in either suppressing democracy or in propping up abominable regimes, it's a bit rich for Stu2 to accuse anyone of supporting violence. John Pilger was correct when he said, "Terrorism, barbarism and mass murder are standard practices on 'our' side; only the technology is different".

There you go. More Stu2 comments systematically debunked.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 01 Sep 2016 #permalink

...and as always, excuse the typos. Smartphone strikes again.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 01 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
Your view of human history is approaching revisionism.
You are creating arguments with someone else, not Stu 2.
It's a classic straw man.
Stu 2 has clearly questioned your politics, your misanthropic stance and your hubris.
No one, including Stu 2, is defending rapacious behaviour by any form of 'ism'.
Stu 2 does not agree that the only way to progress is to dismantle and preach hyperbolic doom and gloom.
Stu 2 does not agree that politics should be conducted as if we're baracking for sporting teams.
Stu 2 does not agree that the weather should be reported as if it's in an Olympic games, record breaking event or on a top 40 chart.
But I would like to thank you for the awesome practice I'm receiving here.

Stu2 does not have a clue.

How is that for rhyming reality?

The facts about this one sided 'debate' are these: Stu2 makes a point: I, Lionel or Wow demolish it. Quite simple really. Some examples:

Stu2 makers a point about western 'civilization'; I question how he can explain how our society can be described as being 'civilized' considering the fact that it perpetuates itself on extreme violence to other nations and their populations as well as to the environment. Stu2's response? Silence.

Stu2 claims that although our system is not perfect, its done many good things and that we can successfully work within it to achieve sustainability (actually, he didn't quite put it as elegantly as that, given his cognitive limitations). I argue that the current form of deregulated capitalism called neoliberalism, is rampaging its way across the biosphere, showing little in the way of constraint in its aim to maximize private profit. This is hardly controversial; the evidence is everywhere.

Stu2 consistently downplays individual weather events as being examples of climate change; he's one of he worst kind of deniers, the 'luke-warmer' who justifies inaction on this basis. He also frequently links to blogs or online sources of skeptics he claims are experts but who have little scientific pedigree in their supposed fields of expertise. By this I mean 10 peer-reviewed papers or less and no real international standing. These people are often old, embittered emeritus scientists who are trying to get some sort of attention in their twilight years. I should know. I've had exchanges with a number of them here in Holland.

Stu2 accuses people who are critical of the current neoliberal order, such as myself, of being mistanthropes, when, if this idiot looked in the mirror, he'd see that he, himself, and others like him who continue to think that we can work within a system that is literally going to kill is are the true misanthropes. I

In effect, Stu2 is a simple, linear thinker in a decidedly nonlinear world. In a face to face debate, which I desperately wish I could have with hum when I do eventually visit Australia, I would annihilate him. I'd like an audience in attendance as large as possible to see the public dressing down. He deserves it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 02 Sep 2016 #permalink

But Jeff?
Hum :-) has no interest in debating you.
What would be the point?
Unlike you apparently, hum :-) is interested in achieving genuine TBL outcomes via practical, workable measures.

There is a point. It would be fun watching you go down. Just like it was when I debated Lomborg in 2002.

A piece of cake.

When I see your workable measures pulling humanity back from the brink I will be convinced. Right now we are heading for it at increasing speed.

By Jeffrey Harvey (not verified) on 02 Sep 2016 #permalink

Bjorn Lomborg doesn't seem to be overly concerned about your encounter in 2002.
I'm a little surprised that you actively dislike Lomborg?
He is a successful academic/ author/screen writerwho cares about finding solutions to global problems especially environmental issues.
His CV is not dissimilar to someone like Hedges or Otto.
So whatever you claim you did 10 years ago doesn't appear to have 'taken him down' as you claim.
I'm reasonably confident that far more people listen to him than you Jeff.
Maybe you could think about talking to him rather than being obsessed with debating him?

BTW.
You are of course welcome to come out here in central NSW and see first hand how we have made a difference.
I'm just not interested in some type of staged debate.
Sorry, I can't see what your idea of putting me down has to do with what I think really matters.

Oh! Such pain! Stu2 is feebly attempting to insult me! Try again, twerp. However, you are correct that Lomborg does not care about our encounter of 14 years ago That is simply because he is a ventriloquist's dummy with not a scintilla of personality or integrity. He's about as human as a slug. When we say down for a supposed discussion after I hammered him, he sat there and mumbled now and again but said little. It was only then that it fully dawned on me that he was as shallow as a puddle but has been programmed well.

As for caring about solving the world's problems, give me a break. Lomborg's only concern is in promote himself. He's got an ego the size of a redwood tree, and on virtually no foundation. One paper in his academic career on iterated prisoners dilemma and some books that were uniformly trashed by experts in the various fields that were superficially covered in these books. He is a darling of the far right corporate-political establishment, hence why he is do famous. They have bottomless bags of money and endlessly promote him. He has been packaged well; the vegetarian Dane and ex member if Greenpeace (which they dispute) who has seen the light and who now thinks that neoliberal economics will lift the world to prosperity.

Nowhere in Lomborg's lexicon is there a dose of political reality; he thinks the poor lands of the south are that way merely because of bad luck and not because of the fact that the developed nations keep them that way. Looting and plunder by the rich are never mentioned, and he surrounds himself with right wing neoclassical economists when seeking those illusory solutions you describe. He conveniently forgets that the money he says is unavailable for eliminating poverty is spent on military budgets, coercion and tax breaks for the rich in the developed countries. Eliminating poverty has never been a priority for the rich; indeed, as volumes of evidence prove, our policies often aim to maintain and even enhance poverty because our planners know full well that if every African had access to the same kind of lifestyle afforded to those in the rich north, then we'd need another several Earth-like planets to sustain the global levels of consumption.

The fact that you write piffle about Lomborg shows that you have about as much intelligence as your former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott e.g. not much.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Sep 2016 #permalink

I think you may be projecting Jeff?
I'm not interested in insulting you.
What would be the point?
I respect your right to express a political opinion, I just don't agree with it.
Societies based on democratic principles clearly have the better track record across a range of issues, including environmental responsibility.
But bad people, greedy people, corrupt people and people with bad attitudes exist in all societies.
Your black hat vs white hat view of politics and nations is really a bit naive.

And I also think Lomborg doesn't care about your encounter 14 years ago simply because he doesn't care about it.
A lot has happened in 14 years.
He may not even remember you?
Clearly however, he impacted you and is remembered by you?
You do realise don't you that there are plenty of highly intelligent, highly educated people who don't choose to remain in the 'publish or perish' world of academia?
Publishing is not part of their job description.
It doesn't make them lesser or greater people.

Oh, Lomborg remembers me alright. He ducked out of several engagements and debates with me afterwards. One was done at the last minute. I skewered his first book in Nature with Stuart Pimm, and later with several other famous ecologists for the Union if Concerned Scientists. Unlike you, Stu, I am not anonymous internationally. I am actually quite well known and highly respected amongst my peers for my efforts to debunk intellectual lightweights like Lomborg and other anti-environmentalists who spew out the same rubbish.

As for publishing, to become an expert in any field takes a very long time - many years in fact. Lomborg had zero expertise in any of the areas he waded into. This should have raised numerous alarms. Lomborg superficially covered a wide range of complex fields in The Sceptical Environmentalist. This certainly raised alarm amongst academics with pedigree in these fields. As I said, Lomborg's aim was never to seek the truth in these fields, but to promote himself. He realized that the best way to attain prominence with the least effort was to write a simplistic account of the state of the planet and to claim that he had changed his mind from being a tree hugging lefty to supporting the views of those with power and influence.

He also knew that the real experts in the various fields covered in TSE would tear it apart, but the scientific community was not his target audience. The general public and right wing policy makers were the intended readers of TSE. People whose knowledge of environmental issues is exceedingly shallow but who are anxious to feel that they are not part of an economic and political system that is destroying our ecological life support systems. People who want to continue with the current business-as-usual approach and who thus want to believe that profligate consumption and global wealth inequalities are just fine. Essentially, the target audience for Lomborg's puerile optimism are simpletons like you, Stu2. And the world is full of people who think your way. That is why we are in such deep trouble.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Sep 2016 #permalink

... and lastly, don't start with that kindergarten-level argument about societies with democratic principles. It's bullshit that I and others here have already debunked. Real democracy does not exist, at least in the developed world. They are either stage managed by elite interests who loathe democracy, or else have been entirely co-opted by corporations, as in the United States. Your arguments are so utterly blind to the real world that I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Wow's nickname for you, StuPid, is certainly appropriate. Good grief you are blank. Your posts are cringe worthy.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Sep 2016 #permalink

Your black hat vs white hat view of politics and nations is really a bit naive.

Lord, love a duck, £u€k a rat, what an example of puerile projection from a £u€k-knu€kle of a know little who understands even less.

Look how what some claim as the world's oldest democracy (those with US centric vision) is working out .

Now the tentacles of the Kochtopus have developed further and run through the fabric of media-politics like mycelium through cheese with some probably reaching that intellectual fraud that is Lomborg.

And to further underline the debacle unfolding in the US and elsewhere (I am currently engaged elsewhere with somebody who though intelligent has bought the misinformation that has oozed through the worst elements of the UK press, which is most of it) here is more: Americans Now More Politically Polarized On Climate Change Than Ever Before, Analysis Finds.

We should have moved on from this position and about twenty years ago. Unfortunately the likes of Exxon and the Kochs with their paid for agents such as Singer, Soon, Lindzen, Michaels, Curry, Christy, Plimer, ( and others in this rogues gallery ) have ensured delay that will cost the younger generations dear. Only bloody fools have it otherwise!

I sm sure that Mr. Trump will be an excellent president, much better than Clinton or Obama. He will cut down all obscene financing of ecosystem services crap and dissolve EPA as non-performing trash organization.

Jeff.
Along with Lionel, you need to define 'real democracy'.
I would also like to see your definition of 'anti environmentalist'.
It appears to me that if people question your political opinion, they are automatically branded as 'anti environmentalist'?

Kim: go away. You fit the definition of troll to a tee.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Sep 2016 #permalink

So Stu2 has to use Wikipedia - probably edited by Lomborg himself - as his source. Let me put this way. Lomborg is considered a top scholar amongst the scientific illiterati and those supporting neoliberalism. He is feted by right wing think tanks and the corporate media. It stops there.

Amongst virtually the entire scientific community, he is seen as a shill, or worse still, a useful idiot. Given that he has absolutely no expertise in any of the fields he superficially covers, and has done no research in them, he is ignored. Completely. The problem is that those with power and influence love him because he speaks their language. So they promote him by shoving him in front of every camera and ensuring that he has a prominent voice in the corporate mainstream media.

I actually do not think that he is stupid. On the contrary, he knew how to bypass the usual queue to become well known. Simply stick your finger to the wind, take the opposite view (one that will appeal to those desperate for optimism as well as those with the wealth and power who do not want to change things) and also claim that you are a true environmentalist. The fact is that Lomborg does not have a single environmentalist cell in his entire body. If he did, he wouldn't be hanging around those who are responsible for the widespread destruction of our planet.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Sep 2016 #permalink

As for the term anti environmentalist, the very fact that you have to ask for a definition shows what an intellectual lightweight you are, Stu2.

Read Andrew Rowell's quite outstanding book 'Green Backlash' and the term becomes clear. The book is 20 years old but as relevant today as it was in the 1990's. Effectively, the term describes those using money and power to eliminate or at least reduce government regulations aimed at protecting the environment. Brian Tokar, an environmental writer, argues that a centrepiece of corporate strategy is the evisceration of public constraints in the pursuit of private profit. In this way, Lomborg was useful because he incorrectly argues that everything is getting better, playing into the hands of those on the far right whose aim is described by Tokar. The fact that Lomborg has cozied up to right wing think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which actively works on behalf of its corporate sponsors to attack government regulations, is indicative of the man.

Lomborg doesn't care about the scientific evidence, but about promoting himself. He has done a good job of that but in the end has sold his soul to the devil to achieve this prominence.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Sep 2016 #permalink

I note that Stupid has just tried to shoot another messenger, this time Josh Israel, instead of trying to comprehend the message and consider the deeper implications. Which latter are one example of the further perversion of democracy by those only interested in power and/or financial gain.

That old continuum again:

data — information — knowledge — understanding — wisdom

with Stupid stuck hovering around stage 2 unable to form a valid knowledge base from the incoming information.

To the scientific community, Lomborg does not even qualify as a lightweight. He's invisible. He is only considered important amongst the media circles and think tanks who promote him. Since they have huge financial resources, he is given a veritable megaphone to spew his nonsense.

But to reiterate, he is a laughingstock amongst scientists.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Sep 2016 #permalink

Besides Jeff Harvey's excellent slap down of Lomborg 2Stupid should avail himself of David Pimentel's critique (tear down) of Lomnborg's crass, ethically challenged work.

A short taster from that pdf tells much

Lomborg bases his more optimistic opinions on his own selective use of data.

And that, friends, barely scratches the surface of Lomborg's perfidy.

Jeff.
Lomborg does not claim to be a scientist.
His expertise is in areas that you are commenting on Jeff.
Lionel,
Pimental focuses on population increases and our ability to feed a growing population via sustainable methods.
Interestingly, it is in societies based on democratic principles where population increases has generally settled down.
In such societies girls and women have access to education and can vote.

For the last bloody time, Lomborg is NOT a expert in areas I comment on. He is a social scientist and/or statistician (in Denmark, when I visited there in 2002, experts in both areas denied he was in 'their' field because they were so embarrassed by Lomborg's nonsense). In his PhD he did NO research in any of the areas he covered in the Skeptical Environmentalist. How on Earth could Lomborg be an expert in about 20 fields that are so divergent? He isn't, and as I said before he wrote his abominable tome he had never done anything in any of the fields he hashes up in TSE.

You will notice that all of the pundits that ran to Lomborgs defense after scientists like me were highly critical aren't Earth of environmentalist scientists either. They are either hacks or right wing pundits, such as Budiansky, who is a first rate idiot IMHO. Stuart Pimm told me that at some meeting Budiansky was so flustered by questions undermining his arguments defending Lomborg's extinction rate estimates that he blurted out that Edward O. Wilson alone is the blame for overestimating extinction rates. Seriously. Paul Ehrlich demolishes Budiansky in his book, Betrayal and Science and Reason. Since you've never heard of Budiansky before, its hardly surprising that you scoured the internet and dredged him up.

Stu2, the more you write the deeper the hole you dig for yourself. As I said earlier, you have a very shallow understanding or knowledge of the whole Lomborg saga or or anti-environmental literature as a whole. Taking me on in this of all areas is a waste of your time. I've been involved in these kinds of discussions for almost 20 years and I have lectured widely on them. Give it a break.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Sep 2016 #permalink

Good grief, I see that Budiansky didn't keep his trap closed when it comes to only trying to defend nincompoops like Lomborg. He was at it again as recently as 2010, claiming that we should embrace industrial agriculture and not overly concern ourselves with supporting locally grown produce.

And the idiot was rightfully smacked down again:

http://www.alternet.org/story/147922/why_an_anti-locavore_rant_in_the_n…

By the way, Stu2, plenty of clowns have bios up on Wikipedia. Copy-pasting bonafides of these people is par for the course for AGW deniers and anti-environmentalists. Its their desperate plea to prove that there are actually 'experts' (I use the term loosely here) out there who have different views for 99% of the scientific community. As is so often the case with the stuff you write, it doesn't work here. Budiansky is a dope. End of story.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Sep 2016 #permalink

I like the subtitle to Ehrlich & Ehrlich 'Betrayal of Science and Reason' which is:

How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future

Which is an aspect that Shawn Otto explains as well as the origins of same in his 'The War on Science'.

Now don't ever come back with your opinion as to the lines Otto takes until you have read that book oh ignorant one, you really should read Ehrlich & Ehrlich too.

Otto puts the situation well in his book on page 307:

"If one side presents knowledge and the other opinion, simply reporting both sides is not journalism. It constitutes malfeasance"

So there we have it, are you (and Lomborg) on the side of knowledge or of malfeasance?

Your own words betray you as not being with the former.

Of course Pimentel's focus is on his area of expertise, for that is how criticism should work. That is not a weakness.

One factor that Pimentel does not mention WRT water-borne infectious disease, and there was no reason for him to do so, is that because of misapplication of antibiotics, including a fraud perpetrated by the food industry, new strains of pathogens have evolved with tolerance to an increasing number of the antibiotics developed.

This at a time with more human movement around a warming globe with new disease vectors opening up as land and oceans warm.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are mounted and ready to charge into action, this whilst the population at large is deliberately distracted by silly gossip, tittle-tattle, manufactured scandal and 'entertainments' this latter often with their attendant scandals of doping and financial irregularity.

I look on the football world, with its ridiculously high generated player transfer schemes (with all sorts of horse trading going on in the background — with some blackmail I wouldn't be surprised — from the tight transfer window) and iniquitous ticket and strip pricing as a huge money laundering scheme. It is an ugly game!

Read and learn.

Read that article on Free Trade by Robert Reich (you should know where).

Look up the definition of help too for it has nothing to do with pointing fingers at the messenger.

Lionel.
I think Jeff probably wins the shooting or pointing at the messenger prize.
:-)
Linking their information is actually referring to facts isn't it?
I did not supply an opinion.

"Jeff.
Reread your comments @#32 & #56?"

I did.

"Which is it?
Every developed nations or not?"

Every developed nations (grammatically incorrect, NATION) or not WHAT? The question you pose makes no sense wrt the two posts you are querying.

"I think Jeff probably wins the shooting or pointing at the messenger prize."

Problem is, Stupid, you don't think. You just proclaim whatever pops into your tiny little head.

I'll take a compassionate organic growing young woman like Kerry Trueman over a Budiansky any time. His book 'Nature's Keepers' is abominable. Poor science, lack of knowledge about the fields he covers superfically etc.

As for shooting the messenger, I shoot down their arguments. Lomborg's book was demolished by various experts in the various fields it covers incluiding me. Problem is, that those promoting him ignored the scientific rebuttals. Its as if the scientific community does not exist.

Given the ritual debunking he is experiencing here, all Stu2 has left is to copy-paste links with Wikipedia CVs in an attempt to legitimize hacks like Lomborg and Budiansky. Both of them have no credibility amongst scientists. NONE. Its the simpletons like Stu2 who lap up what they say - and they are the intended targets, after all.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Sep 2016 #permalink

Is that what Stupid meant? That if you shoot down an argument, you're "Shooting the messenger"?!?!?!

It sure looks that way Wow, he sure is piss poor at comprehension.

Lionel.
You accused me of shooting the messenger when I copied the link re Josh Israel.
How is that 'shooting the messenger'?
You did it again @#3
Jeff.
Lomborg doesn't need my help to be legitimised.

Lomborg is indeed a political scientist and a statistician and he comments on politics and economics.
Jeff is a biologist and comments on politics and economics.
According to Jeff's own argument we should only listen to people who are academically qualified in their fields.
Except apparently when they're young and compassionate & organic & etc?
It looks like Craig hit the nail on the head in an earlier comment?
And Wow.
I did indeed commit a grammar error in that comment.
Why is that important?
Would you like me to point out the errors you have made?

Good grief, Stu2 insists on making an idiot out of himself. Lomborg is most certainly NOT a political scientist. He has never done any formal research on politics or economics. He did his PhD on Games Theory, about as far removed from politics and economics as one can get. I am certainly as qualified as he is to comment on these areas. Moreover, I am far MORE qualified to discuss areas related to the effects of our economic systems on biodiversity.

Recall that Lomborg has one - ONE - paper published in a peer reviewed journal in over 20 years on academia. This matters, because it is through vigorous research that is evaluated by one's peers that a scientist attains standing in a specific field. Lomborg's only standing is amongst the numerous right wing corporate funded think tanks and media who endlessly promote him. Among the real statutes experts at universities he is considered something of a joke. When I was in Denmark I met a number of top statisticians who said to me that his analyses were appalling. They virtually disowned him by claiming that he was a social scientist. But then I net several leading Danish social scientists who said that Lomborg was an embarrassment and they dismissed him as a statistician. Thus, Lomborg succeeds by going right down the middle.

Is he incompetent? Certainly. But he is competent enough to convince the simple and gullible masses out there, including people like Stu2, who understand little about the various fields distorted and simplified by Lomborg and who are desperate for hope and optimism. Lomborg provides that in buckets.

Lastly, the worst thing really about Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus gimmick, I'd not only that he exclusively invites right wing neoclassical (dinosaur) economists to evaluate and prioritize the world's problems, it's that the lot of them have no basic grasp of political reality. They come up with arbitrary sums of money - say, 50 or 75 billion dollars - and calculate how this could allegedly be best spent to alleviate poverty and/or help the poor. They also appear to assume that the developed world is doing everything in its power to help those unfortunate souls in the south. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Helping the underdeveloped nations has never been a priority of the developed world. We are too busy looting their resources to care about their destitute peoples. There's tons of evidence for this that Lomborg us oblivious to. The United States spends around 50 billion dollars every 2 or 3 weeks of every year on the military. It appears that funds used for killing people are more important than spending a fraction of that on saving them. Nowhere in Lomborg's calculations is the true nature of corporate greed or reinforcement of the military-industrial complex discussed. He lives in a fairy tale where everyone wants to help everyone else.

So neither Lomborg or Stu2 are in a position to lecture me about political reality.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Sep 2016 #permalink

One final point: Stu2, are you going to tell me that Noam Chomsky is not qualified to comment on political science because his professional background is in linguistics?

If so, you are even more of a simpleton than I thought.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Sep 2016 #permalink

Lomborg earned a PhD in political science in 1994.
Your Chomsky argument is entirely yours Jeff.
I have not mentioned Chomsky.

Note for imbeciles:

linking to information on a person without comment can only be seen as a means of muddying the waters in order to undermine the person cited, thus equivalent to 'shooting the messenger'.

Lomborg studied game theory. Hardly political science. Moreover, he only published a single chapter from his PhD thesis. And you tried to indicate that Lomborg was qualified to discuss political areas and not me, which is simply daft. I gave a much better understanding of relevant issues - Lomborg's inability to understand ecological footprint analyses and the conveyor ecosystem services, both relevant in economics, proves it. The Chomsky example fits well. It's just that you are too thick to see the connection.

Most importantly, as I said yesterday, Lomborg is considered an ignoramus by the scientific community. He is adored by neoliberal thinkers and the political right, which shows exactly where they are coming from.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Sep 2016 #permalink

ON GAME THEORY YOU CLOWN !!!!!! He was in the department of political science; that doesn't mean he knows diddly shit about politics. And he has only a single, mediocre paper from his thesis published in a peer reviewed journal. That says it all.

Stu2 relies on bloody Wikipedia for his information. It's frankly pathetic.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Sep 2016 #permalink

I am almost at breaking point with Stu2's trolling. I don't know if it is willful ignorance or if he is just plainly simple. He's trying like crazy to defend Lomborg who already has been shunned by the academic community writ large. Lomborg is a pin-up boy for right wing blogs, think tanks, astroturf groups and Fox News, who love to endlessly promote his shallow message. That Lomborg does not have a clue what he is talking about doesn't matter. He preaches neoliberalism to the converted.

As for his PhD, so what? As can be seen among climate change deniers, many have PhDs but are pretty lousy scientists with few publications and little in the way of international standing. To reiterate, Lomborg has no standing amongst academics who have seen through his piffle. His message is confined to those with right wing agendas or else who are desperate for optimism.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Sep 2016 #permalink

Stu2 is like a dripping tap, there to annoy until fixed,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarhus_University
And Lomborg also earned an M.A.in political science at this university in 1991.
Lomborg doesn't need me to defend him Jeff.
I'm seriously questioning the base of your arguments.
Your claims about your 'academic community' are not adding up.
As I mentioned earlier, the 'publish or perish' world of academia is not the only place that highly intelligent and highly educated people reside.
After they complete their PhDs, publishing papers is not necessarily part of their job description.
That does not make them lesser or greater people.
I'm also not observing the ecologists and biologists I work with flapping around with one wing - either right or left.
They're working on kicking goals in their fields of expertise.
They care deeply about achieving TBL outcomes, repairing and rejuvenating landscapes.
However, I'm reasonably confident they would be rather amused by the political stance you take Jeff.
My observation is that Lomborg also cares about such things.
He does not deny climate change caused by anthropogenic influence.
He questions the politics and policies.

Lionel.
You paste links and authors as standard alone comments.
Does that mean you're 'shooting the messenger?
I can shoot Josh Israel if you would like me too.
What would be the point?
I'm consistently lectured and berated for not listening to the 'right' people and it's consistently, suppisedly related to their academic authority.
But consistently you blokes link up people and/or journalists and/or authors and/or activists etc who have minimal academic qualifications.
I repeat, unlike you blokes apparently, I completely defend their rights to express their political and social opinions regardless of which team they belong to and/or whether they're academically qualified to comment on it.
That's a key, underlying, ethical principle in societies based on democratic principles.

And Wow.
I have committed a spelling error due to a typo.
My apologies.
It should be 'supposedly'
The i sits right next to the o on the qwerty keyboard and as Jeff has discovered, it can sometimes be far too easy to commit an error on these smartphone keyboards.
There's no need to read something worrying into that :-)

Your observations aren't worth diddly squat, Stu2. You're view of the world is simple and linear. Guess what? Lomborg registered the American office of the Copenhagen Consensus somewhere in Massachusetts, presumably for taxation purposes. Somebody bothered to check out the address and it turns out it is an abandoned warehouse. What an idiot.

Lomborg sure is a piece of work. Once again, having a PhD on Games Theory is not a pre-requisite to wisdom. Moreover, its general practice to publish at least 4 papers from your PhD - Lomborg published only one. More grist for the mill. As I said, the very fact that Lomborg has cozied up to some pretty repugnant organizations and think tanks that exist to promote the interests of their corporate paymasters in the form of deregulation does, or at least should, tell you where he's coming from. He's out to promote himself. Period. Nothing else. He uses this fake compassion as a smokescreen. His appalling book TSE - universally condemned by the scientific community - has done more to harm the public's understanding of environmental problems than perhaps any other book in history. The only true words he writes in the entire tome are in the preface where he says, "I admit I am not an expert on environmental problems'. Then, when scientists in Denmark and later around the world counter most of the nonsense he spews out, far from listening to us he hunkers down and stays the course.

But why am i telling you this? Its clear as I have said before that you and I are miles apart in terms of knowledge. You write simple gibberish. Garbage. That is why I would love to debate you over there - preferably in front of your 'colleagues', just to show how brazenly ignorant you are. I cringe at some of your posts, they are THAT bad. I don't give a rat's ass if Lomborg graduated from a political science department of a university. His PhD was on Games Theory. Know what that is Stu or do you have to look it up? Note also how Abbott tried to bring Lomborg into Australia to set up a CCC there, and that it was met with fierce resistance from other academics who forced Abbott to back down. Now ask yourself this: the CCC was booted ut of Denmark by the new government. Lomborg fled to the Czech Republic and set it up there. Why the Czech Republic? Because it has a very right wing government that, like Rasmussen's previous administration in Denmark, loved the deregulatory nonsense Lomborg spewed out. Then Rasmussen was turfed and so was Lomborg. He has also not hesitated to accept useless awards like the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award from the ltra right Competitive Enterprise Institute, and even shared a stage with neocon John Bolton (as repugnant an individual as they come) at the UN. So don't tell me that Lomborg is tearing his heart out trying to solve the world's problems. Its total and utter bullshit.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Sep 2016 #permalink

"But consistently you blokes link up people and/or journalists and/or authors and/or activists etc who have minimal academic qualifications"

An amazing remark, given the stiffs that Stu2 lines up here to downplay environmental problems including Lomborg. The other dishonest thing that Stu2 does is pit one person - whether qualified or not - against hundreds or even thousands of scientists with very different opinions. For him, Lomborg is the 'bottom line' although in the Skeptical Environmentalist he downplayed threats to forest and freshwater ecosystems, biodiversity, climate change etc - all fields in which has absolutely no background or expertise.

The reason is simple: if someone says something that a person like Stu2 likes, he'll shout their name from the rooftops and do everything to legitimize them. If they say something he doesn't like, then he will ignore them or downplay their qualifications. Let me put it this way - those who have heavily criticized Lomborg's approaches to the environment and climate change have more knowledge and qualifications in these fields in their little finger nails than Lomborg has in his entire body.

So Stu2, don't come on here preaching pedigree. Budiansky has been roundly criticzed by many scientists, including Paul Ehrlich in Betrayal of Science and Reason. No need to compare the expertise of Ehrlich and Budiansky. Its like night and day.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Sep 2016 #permalink

And then this howler: "He (Lomborg) does not deny climate change caused by anthropogenic influence. He questions the politics and policies.

He's a luke warmer. And he doesn't even discuss the politics because they are way over his head. Nowhere is neoliberalism and its major role in driving environmental damage on Lomborg's radar. I had my Masters students critique an essay he wrote for a magazine on ecological footprints and many of them came up to me and said, "Why would a magazine allow Lomborg to write such shit?" Seriously. They could see the major flaws in what he wrote and could also find many clear misunderstandings in Lomborg's view of how ecological footprints are measured.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Sep 2016 #permalink

Lionel.
You paste links and authors as standard alone comments.

That is a miss-characterisation of my citations, citations which have context, yours not so much — to the point of pointlessness.

But then such subtleties are not your strong suit either.

What's a 'Lukewarmer' ?????

In other words, Lomborg believes that, although AGW is real, and may cause minor problems, we should not prioritize it. Remember, this is the same guy who said in the preface of The Skeptical Environmentlaist that, "I am not an experts as regards environmental problems". Yet, despite being a complete neophyte in and field pertaining to environmental science, he can confidently assert that AGW is not a major threat and thus we need to spend monies elsewhere to alleviate human suffering. All this, again, combined with his lack of acknowledging (or probably even understanding) the destructive effects of neoliberal capitalism on the environment or of the corporate agendas that aim to maximize profit irrespective of the human and environmental costs. He's a ninny.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Sep 2016 #permalink

From a denier, not really a lukewarmer:

I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future.

Denial of the extreme dangers that the warming poses to humanity and Earth's fellow travellers. Denial of the fact that without a drastic reign in of emissions (i.e. business as usual which would suite that writer very well indeed — see below) climate change and the deleterious effects of same can only get worse, and have done since the piece from which that was extracted was written.

Denial is denial no matter what is being denied.

I refuse to link directly to this nonsense opinion piece from this sociopathic devious individual (hint his land sits on a coal mine and thus this persons tactics are driven by self interest) for those interested can look this up for themselves.

This person is presumably, by his record of writing on science topics, intelligent so he therefore knows that he is lying, this is culpable denial.

He deserves as much ridicule and exposure as his acquaintance in a certain propagandist 'Think Tank' one Lomborg.

"You accused me of shooting the messenger when I copied the link re Josh Israel."

Yes?

"How is that ‘shooting the messenger’?"

Is that a direct quote?

"You did it again @#3"

Where? Here's post 3:

"pointing fingers at the messenger."

Nowhere saying "shooting the messenger".

If you what to whinge at something you said, complain to you, not substitute someone else's name. Or use their words, rather than your own.

Dumbass.

"Lomborg is indeed a political scientist and a statistician"

Pol Sci isn't scientist, just like a PhD in minerology doesn't make you an MD, despite both being called "Doctor".

And where is his chops at statistics, and where do they apply in any of the claims of his you parroted??

"You paste links and authors as standard alone comments.
Does that mean you’re ‘shooting the messenger?"

YOU are the only one here recently banging on about shooting messengers.

You#re doing it here again.

But you;re pretending, even to yourself, that you are the victim of this blame, because you're just fucking cuckoo nutballs and desperate for a reason why you're being told you're wrong that doesn't include "you are wrong" in it.

OK Jeff.
We're getting nowhere fast.
Here's an interesting challenge for you.
One of the people I work with often comes up with this question when working with people like you.
There's no doubt that you care deeply about our global environment and want to see socio-economic change .
If you were put in charge for a short period and had the power to change 1 or 2 socio-economic, global policies, what would those 1 or 2 changes be?
The first time I heard that question I thought it was overly simplistic. However, because I've now seen it answered many times, I think it's an excellent question.
In particular, it helps passionate people to articulate specific socio-economic global issues and then carefully consider specific socio-economic global solutions.
Some of the answers I have heard are amazingly simple and practical.
Hence, I have my personal response to that question.
What would be yours?

OK, Stu2, this is an easy question.

First of all, I would not immediately dismantle the current system, but I would overhaul it dramatically. In time I would hope that our species could somehow abandon its suicidal tribal instincts and pursue a more egalitarian path. First, I would throw out all of the neoliberal reforms that have been installed since the times of Reagan and Thatcher and pursued quite universally since then across much of the planet. This would mean reconstructing the regulatory apparatus that limit the influence of corporations, banks and the rich by giving these bodies real teeth. Then i would restructure the political system to ensure that elections cannot effectively bankrolled by the rich. In the United States, legalizing campaign donations and giving the same power to corporations as people has been a disaster. In the rest of the pseudo-democratic world, democracies are still largely managed to ensure elites rule or at least determine policy. This is done through various means, of which the state-corporate media is perhaps the most important. Given media ownership, its clear that it serves or at least prioritizes the interests of the privileged few. I have no idea how we can do this but its important the make the media much more democratic. When I read the broadsheets or listen to the BBC these days I cringe. I can barely last a few minutes with the propaganda they spew out continuously. If they are not demonizing a non-aligned politician or smearing a whistleblower they are bolstering someone within the corporate-politicial establishment and/or justifying atrocities committed in support of illusory agendas such as democracy promotion or humanitarian intervention.

I would also restructure the tax system to ensure that huge corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, the oil giants etc. pay taxes. Right now, through various loopholes they are avoiding this, leaving the burden to be paid by the working and middle classes. Its obscene. And lastly I would prevent outsourcing for profit, unless we had global laws enacted to ensure that corporations based in the north were not allowed to relocate in the south in order to exploit a cheap workforce and to plunder the resources of these countries.

Of course this is only a beginning. Essentially, we need a global egalitarian-based socio-political system to replace the greed driven, ecocidal one under the guise of neoliberalism that pervades the developed world now. In the middle term we must stop corporations determining policy and encouraging wars that underpin the military industrial states. If we don't change course quite dramatically, then we are doomed. Tweaking programs within the current system will only delay the inevitable.

I'd love t discuss this with Lomborg, but the dude is terrified of me. When we sat down for an hour after I'd pretty well skewered him with his own words in our debate, he looked like a chastened little boy and said virtually nothing. I recall his only response to me when I told him about the global pandemic of amphibian declines was, and I quote, "It's a virus ain't it?". It was then that I saw him as only a symptom of a greater malaise. He's a wind up mannequin with little to say outside of his 'box'. That's why I haven't wasted so much time on him over the past decade. He's a nobody, despite attempts by the media, think tanks and other agenda-driven corporate entities to legitimize him.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 08 Sep 2016 #permalink

So Jeff.
Try to make it simpler.
You're only allowed one or 2 specific changes.
Dismantling the current system is far too broad and it's been unsuccessful where it's been tried.
Try again & think in terms of just 1 or 2 specific socio-economic changes that will target specific socio-economic problems.
It is not unusual for people like you to answer as you have.

Dismantling the current system is far too broad and it’s been unsuccessful where it’s been tried.

Read his words again cretin but before you do take lessons in comprehension.

Also take lessons in geopolitical history and consider why your basic limitations on the scope of change required are artificial and from a too simplistic perspective. This is the core problem of any discussion with you, your limited cognitive framework. You make arbitrary conditions which form roadblocks to a sensible response to what is a 'wicked problem'. I expect a fun retort from you about that latter description.

OK.
Maybe I need to take a step back.
This has been a progressive exercise and it was probably unfair to throw it in out of left field.
The original question (from a highly qualified ecologist) was simpler.
I mistakenly assumed that I could take a bit of a leap.
My bad. Sorry.
The original question, before he got better at it, was:
If you were put in charge for one day and allowed to make one change to solve a global issue, what would you change?
BTW Jeff.
I agree the taxation system is obscene.
And Lionel.
I originally thought it was too simplistic. I have already said that.

And Lionel.
I originally thought it was too simplistic. I have already said that.

Wibble, wibble!

"OK Jeff.
We’re getting nowhere fast."

But since you're the one stalling, what's that got to do with Jeff?

Perhaps focus on your second last paragraph Jeff?
You broadly outline something to work towards there.
What's one specific change you would make if you were in charge for one day to take a positive step in that direction?

Would you like to know what my one change to help facilitate global egalitarian socio-economics is?

Nope, you are boorish enough already!

Good, at last some serious reporting on an issue which many of us have worried about for some time, in my case from a noted change in species movement across the UK and in the surrounding seas.

Most in so called developed countries have no idea about the impending ecological issues that will ensue from this.

Your link doesn't seem to work Lionel.
You're not interested in discussing specific socio-economic changes that could facilitate positive steps towards global egalitarianism?
Or perhaps specific socio-economic changes that could help facilitate positive environmental results?
That's surprising.

Look, I feel that I am wasting my time on here debating with someone who honestly appears to think that the alleged democracies across the developed world actually are representative of public opinion. He doesn't appear to think that they are managed by the ruling elites to ensure that their interests are prioritized. He probably has no idea what the Occupy movement was all about, or else that those participating in it were all just a bunch of deluded radicals or old hippies. He also appears to believe that our state-corporate media are honest arbiters of the truth, and as such are good sources of information on various social and political aspects of the world.

All of the above assumptions by our resident skeptic are false, and there is plenty of evidence to prove it if one makes even a cursory effort to do so. I do not hold out much hope for the prolonged survival of Homo sapiens on the simple basis that our species appears to be evolutionarily programmed for self destruction based on the selfish genetic principle that rewards sheer greed over altruism. If we had any common sense, we would have abandoned the current neoliberal profit-driven system before it really took root, and followed a more socially just compassionate form of politics and economics. Yet even with the accumulating evidence of the collapse of the ecosystems on which we depend, driven by climate change and a suite of other anthropogenic assaults across the biosphere, we refuse to budge from the current system and, if anything, the rich and powerful are 'digging in' and are manipulating the masses more then ever throughout the media they own via unrepentent propaganda. Look at the US election, a veritable farce with two vile criminals running for office, one a climate change-denying populist who blames the imminent collapse of US empire on Islamic or Mexican immigrants, and the other a war mongering neocon who things that the US owns the world. Some choice.

I have already spelled out what course I feel that we need to take to at least enhance the chance of our longer term survival. Social democracy, meaning governments that prioritize the interests of everyone rather than the privileged few; strong and enforceable regulations that protect society and the environment from the industries that benefit from deregulation (this includes the banks); scaling down of the military-industrial infrastructure that is pushing for endless war; and steady state economics to replace the outdated neoliberal model.

Will we follow this course? No, at least not until it is too late in my opinion. All of the little tweaks to our current system will not stop us going over the cliff.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Sep 2016 #permalink

the missing link, probably some minor html slip (out and a stupid MS keyboard where all the characters are wearing of the keys, keys arranged in a curve - expensive product from cheap skates!).

Too amplify the above I urge people to have a read of Carl Safina's excellent texts on ecosystems.

Starting with Song for the Blue Ocean.

Few chapters made me more angry than the one entitled, 'Valley of Giants, Mountains of Gods' which describes over a century of very bad clear cutting of timber to the great detriment of other species including the famed Pacific salmon. The scale of destruction wrought from northern California, up through Oregon and Washington states, on through British Columbia into Alaska, so much devastation wrought with 'Honest Abe' giving things a kick start in the nineteenth century.

The criminal economics of this destruction, where latterly valuable old growth is cut down for speculators to trade at rock bottom prices to overseas corporations in Japan and Korea. Valuable rare hardwoods used for cement boxes in Japan. Meanwhile as the forest has dwindled at accelerating rates due to mechanisation the people who once cut timber sustainably are forced out of jobs with the downturn being blamed on the environmentalist and their spotted owl cause. A typical perversion of the truth as usual. I wonder how Betula figures in this picture.

This, humpty numpty, is just one example of the canker that has infected human society, where short term financial gain means more than the longevity of the natural resources that support us. Another side to this is a disconnect of 'city types' from the nature that nurtures. Why is it do you think that the over-rich in monetary terms feel a need for a second home in the country. Which in turn inflates rural property prices making it hard for any remaining itinerant workers to find accommodation, with even rented being beyond their means.

The whole system of so called 'fair trade' is a sham requiring a reform which deals with the root causes of inequality - the greed and ignorance of how the natural world supports one of its products - us. Human thinking, and education, in the so called developed world requires recasting in that light. Humans area part of natural world and not an entity that stands remote.

I doubt that politicians and the public at large have the awareness, or real interest in instigating such a paradigm shift, short termism rules. As does the belief that replacing one set of corrupt officials with another every five years or so is going to change anything.

And you are correct, I am not interested in discussing your narrow focused view of the world.

And another item appears which reinforces that which I began above, note that those of us who read widely are already aware of the complex world of good growth soil and how it is depleted in nutrients and destroyed by bad practices (amongst them improper use of nitrate fertiliser which actually turns off the ability of fungi and bacteria to provide plants with the nutrients they need - such id wilful ignorance): How trees talk to each other.

There are no specific issues or solutions in that answer Jeff.

You're not debating me.
I'm not interested In debating .
I'm interested in discussing genuine, measureable TBL outcomes.
Unlike you apparently, I think that is in the interests of everyone.
I would suggest that the vast majority on this planet would consider that you are one of the privileged few Jeff.

Lionel,
I entirely agree that the 'city types' are disconnected from the reality of nature.
Not that I like to make sweeping generalisations, but from my experience, the 'urban environmental elites' are often the worst offenders and say some of the most 'disconnected' stuff I have ever heard

And Lionel,
I also agree that academia and education have artificially divided NRM and holistic land and water management. As an example, a PhD agricultural scientist would likely know just as much if not more about the practical implementation of sustainable land and water management than a PhD environmental Scientist yet in academia and also at the regulatory level they exist in different silos and are competing for funding and attention.

There are solutions. Steady State economics over the neoclassical model. Getting rid of the neoliberal form of capitalism and replacing it a more humane form that puts people and the environment ahead of profit. Higher taxes for the rich. Strong, enforceable regulations with severe punishment for corporations that break them. And true democracy over plutocracy.

That's not so complicated eh? But trying to work within the current system to achieve social justice and sustainability is impossible. Its a waste of time. It won't work,

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
How do you create change by not working with what we've got?
Where's the evidence that strong, enforceable regulations with severe punishments works?
What is 'true capitalism'?
Where's the evidence that higher taxes works?
The question was asking for specifics - not sweeping, aspirational political rhetoric.
'Social Justice' is of course a worthy aspiration, but what is one specific socio-economic change you would make to help move the world in that direction?

Trust our Swedish meatless ball to dredge up a corporate media outlets attempt to deligitimize the occupy movement. Notice that they didn't speak with Chris Hedges, or any number of others who could easily have explained why the movement developed. Instead, they pick on some nervous young people who are camera shy. I can easily explain why the Occupy movement evolved, and the efforts of the state-corporate media to supporess and degitimize it. If you want, I could also easily copy-paste up here piles of posts by climate change denying idiots utterly humiliating themselves on blogs and elsewhere on social media. This includes supposed 'luminaries' like Bob Tisdale, in reality laughingstocks.

I have better things to do. There are plenty of people involved in protest movements who know exactly what they are there. Its just too bad that Olly scrapes up some shit from a corporate broadcaster that has openly supported US wars abroad and continues to promulgate the myth of American exceptionalism.

Its frankly pathetic. Crawl back under your rock Olly. Or better still, let us all here know your real identity so we can see what a worm you really are.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 14 Sep 2016 #permalink

If only those Occupy protesters had George W. Bush's facility for providing coherent explanations.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Sep 2016 #permalink

" Steady State economics over the neoclassical model."
SSE is a complete furphy. It cannot be applied to the real-world unless we get rid of our democratic freedoms.
The real problem is ensuring that efficiency improves more quickly than growth. For this you need strong government and regulation, rather than the american model of corporate dominance and strident demands for small government.

"Getting rid of the neoliberal form of capitalism and replacing it a more humane form that puts people and the environment ahead of profit."
Most capitalist societies operate thus. There is no more humane society than a capitalist democracy. You don't have to "get rid of" anything, you just have to improve the systems that have proven very successful and contain the malevolent influence of the selfish socipaths.

"Higher taxes for the rich"
Every time I use a library or a public hospital, I feel really good about paying my taxes, including the sizeable medicare surcharge I pay because I refuse to give money to the private health insurance industry.
But you've only mentioned the first half of your equation - your corollary is, "more handouts".
This shits me to tears. Everybody is screaming for handouts. The vast majority of society pays no net tax, and they are being carried by the very small number of people like me who aren't rich but are easy targets for the government because we have decent incomes. They don't target the actual rich, but instead target people like me who then pay $60k-$70 tax every year to cover all the parasites who are never happy with the extensive handouts they already get and always demand more.

Handouts have destroyed aboriginal communities, and some of the marginal suburban communities are complete hellholes as a direct result of welfare dependence. The proof is in the pudding - welfare dependence is incredibly destructive. The reasons can be guessed at: the Left's persistent assaults on the concept of personal responsibility destroys people's sense of self-worth and their drive to work hard and overcome their obstacles.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Sep 2016 #permalink

Craig.
Can I ask you the same question?
What is one practical socio-economic change you would make to address one socio-economic global issue?

Here's the thing: Rightards want unrestrained growth, Leftards want heavy taxation and heavy government spending.
Both models are based on the assumption that a consumerist society is what we need.
And they're both wrong.
What we actually need is the ability to maintain a basic quality of life - if we so choose - with minimal consumption, as our baseline.
The spread of distributed renewable energy is a major threat to consumerism, because it will assist people to unbind the shackles that tie them to consumerist society.
Proper accounting of the costs of pollution encourages local, smaller-scale energy generation which benefits a community instead of a non-taxpayer multinational, and in turn local this provides encouragement for local production of goods and the creation of micro-economies.
Hence the snowstorm of lies being emitted by the relevant corporations and their pet politicians.

By craig thomas (not verified) on 15 Sep 2016 #permalink

"SSE is a complete furphy"

Says someone with absolutely no expertise on the matter whatsoever. With this simple, Dunning-Kruger infused comment, Craig attempts (and fails) to dismiss the careers of a large and increasing number of economists, including names such as Herman Daly, John Gowdy, Stephan Viedermann and others. Frankly I see this kind of innane dismissal of a field by anti-environmentalists and climate change deniers, so Craig joins a (non) prestigious crowd.

Its not just about efficiency, but about the other fallacies of the neoliberal/neoclassical economic approach - unlimited substitutability and human ingenutiy. These, along with efficiency, are the core tenets of the neoclassical economics and they do not work, at least in terms of ensuring sustainability. We can see that in terms of the health of every ecosystem on the planet which is in decline.

The rest of Craig's post is mumbo jumbo. When is he going to get it - there are no capitalist democracies. Democracy has long been co-opted by the rich. They loathe democracy because it effectively puts power into the hands of the poor who would use to it creat more egalitarian societies. Chomsky, in his latest brilliant book, 'Who Rules the World' outlines the long-held contempt for democracy by the ruliing elites. For a clearly educated guy, Craig exhibits brazen ignorance. He must think we are living in the land of the tooth fairy.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Sep 2016 #permalink

"You’re not debating me."

True, you need to be willing to listen for there to be a debate with you.

"I’m not interested In debating ."

We know.

"I’m interested in discussing genuine, measureable TBL outcomes."

Yup, we noticed that too.

"SSE is a complete furphy. It cannot be applied to the real-world unless we get rid of our democratic freedoms."

Which capitalism having taken over government ideology and made every other option "unelectable", is exactly what is happening in the name of "economic prosperity".

Capitalism relies upon greed, which is pretty reliable.

Unfortunately, it REWARDS greed.

Which is inimical to society consisting of many individuals.

Note how capitalist institutions are the LEAST capitalist and are organised far more rigidly under communist ideology and patterning.

"Here’s the thing: Rightards want unrestrained growth, Leftards want heavy taxation and heavy government spending."

Well unrestricted growth is impossible in a finite universe. Do you have any reason why heavy taxation and heavy government spending is likewise fictional?

"What we actually need is the ability to maintain a basic quality of life – if we so choose – with minimal consumption, as our baseline."

Which is only possible by government spending to provide that. E.g. a UBI.

Envy of the poor enures that this will NEVER be allowed to happen.

Yes, you read that right, envy of the POOR. I mean, how DARE they get something I had to work to earn?!?!?!?! The fact that their wealth,minimal as it is, does not remove mine is irrelevant, the envy will refuse to acknowledge it.

"The vast majority of society pays no net tax, "

You DO know that Romney was talking bollocks about that, right?

And despite all that tax grabbed off you, you're still better off than the poor. Meanwhile the rich insist that handouts are bad, government spending is bad and that taxes should be lowered, which despite you seeming disagreement with rightwing ideology, these bits you've swallowed hook, line, sinker and entire fishing fleet.

Here’s the thing: Rightards want unrestrained growth, Leftards want heavy taxation and heavy government spending.

Only a twerp could come up with a perversion like that, especially the last part.

Seriously, you don't get it Craig do you. It isn't about taxes and handouts but a recognition, "...that money comes from the conversion of natural resources into products" From:

Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World's Coasts and Beneath the Seas. page 298. I suggest you read this book.

Safina encounters what happens when there is a conflict of interests (not in the sense purloined by politics and jobbery) between communities living amongst natural resources. The conflict Safina sees appears most stark along the US Pacific North West where timber interests, cattle interests, water including hydro-power interests and fishermen collide at the expense of the salmon runs that once sustained huge fisheries and also life out in the oceans.

Find a copy of the book Craig and then try to say that some of these people are not deserving of aid, not hand outs, which is paid for by those who have extracted the most natural capital and who should have paid to mitigate the loss of others from the rapacious greed of big money. Chances are there are no funds for full restoration, which itself would be impossible when the particular strain of salmon that maintained runs become extinct, waving dollar bills ain't going to bring them back. There will be no funds to even get started because earnings of big money are hidden in offshore tax havens. These latter need shutting down to even begin ensuring a more egalitarian society. That by the way does not mean all at the same level of society or remuneration, it is just that there should be limitations on the disparity, and the amount any one person, or family can hold.

Don't come back with lack of incentives, this area needs a rethink too.

The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership have this currently on their portal:

The world consumes 50 per cent more natural capital per year than the Earth can replenish. With resources diminishing, businesses have to face a stark choice; adapt or fail.

This cannot go on, it has nothing to do with libtard tax handouts. Seriously calling people libtards is something one by an unpleasant name ending with 'tard' or better still 'turd' would do.

To me it does appear that Derek Jensen gets it and you should do what I have just done and started reading Endgame Volume One (Volume Two sat nearby for due course) for then maybe you will be shaken out of your epistemic bubble.

As for aboriginal communities you may wan't to check up on your thinking there, ISTR that John Pilger paints a very different picture as to the nature and purpose of any so called hand outs in that direction.

Now I am glad you mention libraries. Sadly here in the UK with austerity lead economic policy and budget cuts (at the same time as there is tax relief for fossil fuel companies and increased tax allowances for high earners and big property owners) libraries are becoming all but useless except for entertainment. Even the science and technology sections, mathematics etc have all been expelled into the reference section with consequent thinning down. Thinning down to the point of irrelevance.

There are many books I would like to read but fat chance of a library loan, I have just purchased Endgame and a slew of others. Maybe I should put those titles under your nose too.

I don't think this is an accident, it is a deliberate policy to dumb down society which increasingly gets its information from the MM and Internet and we all know the problems with that. No room for serendipity in today's focused world.

One final shot: here is democracy (Hic!) in action:

Lim Crow in 4 minutes.

If only those Occupy protesters had George W. Bush’s facility for providing coherent explanations.

If only the Craig Thomases of the world were not so easily taken in by how the media FRAMES events!

Oops, last line in #70 above

Jim Crow in 4 minutes.

Lionel.
Derrick Jensen advocates violence.
Where is the evidence that is a good idea?

What clueless Stu doesn't get is that our so-called democracies, especially the UNited States, Britain and Australia, perpetuate extreme levels of violence to ensure the political economic order remains intact. This violence is killiing industrial numbers of poor and also ravaginf the environment, all at the behest of the corporate sector that essentially own the political system. Our nations commit barbaric acts of violence in this pursuit, but camouflage it in sugar-coated propaganda like the spreading of human rights, freedom and democracy. When is Stu going to get it through his head that terrorism, barbarism and mass murder are standard practices on 'our' side?

Jensen advocates civil disobedience and efforts to bring this ecocidal and genocidal system down. He's clearly a lot smarter than Stu who thinks that only the opponents of capitalism are violent.

Read what Paul Street has to say about it:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_to_stop_capitalisms_deadly_war_…

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Sep 2016 #permalink

Stu2 confirms, once again, that he does not understand Jensen's message.

Stu2 confirms that he fails to grasp that civilisation exists because of extreme violence against natural systems and against the way of life of those who had evolved a system of non-destructive usage of those systems.

Read Jensen's Premises again Stupot.

Once again I have to point out Jim Crow in 4 minutes.

Jeff and Lionel,
Violence and inciting people to violence, no matter which 'side' it comes from, does not create good outcomes for society or the environment.
There is no evidence anywhere that 'bringing down' a system creates good outcomes.
Your notion that It's excusable because other people have done it or do it is childish.
Craig
You say that we should improve on the systems that have proved very successful.
Do you have an example?

Jeff.
Your notion that if people question your stance it automatically follows they lack intelligence or are 'anti environmentalist' is also rather childish and not conducive to any type of sensible debate that you appear to be hankering about.

Stupid at #77 once again reinforces his reputation as an ignoramus who refuses to study sources cited and so totally misses the points being made by such as Jensen. His opinion is a total and utter miss-characterisation and can thus be otherwise safely ignored.

Stupidity is terminal

Lionel, agreed. Stu2 tries to defend the unrepentant violence carried out under the guise of the current rapaciously destructive form of capitalism by attacking those who argue that it rightfully needs to be replaced. He continually mischaracterizes Derrick Jensen whose works he has never read. I put up an excellent article by Paul Street and he ignores that too. What a dolt.

As for my use of the term 'anti-environmental', look up the term Stu. My definition is perfectly appropriate.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Sep 2016 #permalink

At the base of it Stupid is a coward, one who would rather ignore any messages that may shake his twisted world view and make him feel unconformable with himself.

His only defence will soon be to accuse us of hypocrisy for not doing anything about the problems we see. If he does that then he will confirm that we are actually on to it - by spreading the message.

Up-thread I mentioned John Pilger I doubt that Stu has read any of Pilger's work. He should, Craig should remind himself too.

Hardley "My definition is perfectly appropriate."

Could you please reduced a little your outpouring self-complacency ("... I ... I ... my ... I ... I am intelligent ...", etc).

Instead it would be interesting that you shed some light on the hiatus in your cv.

Jeff and Lionel
Instead of discussing practical measures you insist on defaulting to sweeping rhetoric and personal accusations.
You can't 'do anything about it' if that's all you've got.
Stu 2 abhors rapacious behaviour, no matter which 'side' perpetuates it.
You have been asked a simple question.
What is one specific changes that could be made to help
progress humanity towards better socio-economic outcomes?
Craig has commented that we should improve systems that have proven very successful.
That's a good place to start.
Jensen et al are not interested in those type of discussions.
The overriding philosophy is revisionist and negative.
But unlike you apparently, I defend everyone's right to express their opinions.

Let's try this.
Pimentel and Jensen both write about population growth and the problems associated with that.
What is one specific socio-economic economic initiative that could help to create a sustainable human population on this planet?

Oh good grief, Kim aka Olaus comes in her with his/her/its semi literate gibberish. If you have something to say make sure that it at least has a point. OK? Anti environmentalism is well described in the literature. Read some of it, you may actually learn something. You want to debate me on anything, twerp, go ahead and try. Hit and run smears are par for the course of those with nothing to say.

As for a hiatus in my CV, this putrid attempt at humour also falls flat. Actually, this year I will publish more peer reviewed articles (16-18) than any other year of my 26 year academic career. And I even still have the time to respond to insipid comments on Deltoid.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Sep 2016 #permalink

Stu2, do you actually read what Lionel and I are saying?

Did you read Paul Street's article from Truthdig that I linked? Have you read a single book by Derrick Jensen (e.g Endgame) or Chris Hedges (e.g Wages of Rebellion) or John Pilger (e.g The New Rulers if the World) or even Noam Chomsky's new book Who Rules the World? It's clear the answer is a big NO, yet you do not hesitate to try and critique them.

I discussed the growing interest in steady state economics and that slipped by you as well. Brian Czech wrote an outstanding book on sse entitled Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train in which he demolished the neoclassical economic model that underpins the current rapaciously violent neoliberal form of capitalism. It's a must read. He points out in the book that unless we abandon the neoliberal model we are committed to a dire future. The book lays out all kinds of arguments that debunk the mantra of economic growth that pervades neoliberalism. Craig tried (and miserably failed) to criticise sse with fatuous arguments about efficiency, whereas in the real world we are light years away from achieving anything remotely close to sustainability in the developed world. Instead, most of the developed nations, in particular those with large populations or living on comparatively small land masses foster huge domestic ecological deficits and must reach beyond their own borders to obtain, via looting, violence and coercion, the resources they need to maintain these deficits. In other words, these nations ignore measures of attaining anything close to domestic sustainability by looting and exporting their ecological damage. This salient fact is ignored by simpletons like Bjorn Lomborg who write as if there is a tooth fairy.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Sep 2016 #permalink

Instead of discussing practical measures you insist on defaulting to sweeping rhetoric and personal accusations.

'Sweeping rhetoric', - always projection from such as 2Stupid. and dishonest too. Maybe that is an accusation but not one without foundation.

What is that foundation - lying, yes lying about the expressed beliefs of Jensen and accusations that Jensen 'advocates violence'. That is a total and utter distortion. If Stupid was honest and had actually bothered to read Jensen rather than relying on some interpreter of Jensen's world view then he would understand this.

Maybe Stupid can point to evidence, Jensen's own words only and not removed from context (a la Plimer), to support his accusations.

Here is Jansen himself,

'...I no more advocate violence than I advocate nonviolence. Further, I think that when our lifestyle is predicated on the violent theft of resources, to advocate nonviolence without advocating the immediate dismantling of the entire system is not, in fact, to advocate nonviolance at all, but to tacitly countenance the violence (unseen by us, of course; see Premise Four) on which the system is based.

One does not have to read far into 'Endgame' Volume One to find that section, one that encapsulates Jensen's view that the world is being raped of its resources with the concomitant impoverishment of the population who have suffered the indignity, and devastation, of having the resources upon which the may have relied in a sustainable way, mined out, at peppercorn rates, from under their feet.

That is not to say that everybody in the affected community have been reduced to poverty for the track record of multinationals is to use their loose change to buy the local leaders or warlords, or more subtle fiscal and other incentive techniques in order to divide and rule.

Thus we see that this 'problem' like the causes and effects of global warming, is a wicked problem and not amenable to one simple change or adaptive measure. This is what Jensen makes clear, if only Stupid would take the trouble to read him.

The fact that Stupid, as evidenced by his quick simplistic replies, refuses to do that and continues with his bluster, for that is all he is offering, is highly insulting considering the time that Jeff, myself and others have invested in acquainting themselves with the world as it is rather than the censored pastiche given to the Stupids of the world on a paper plate, a plate starting to disintegrate from the filth upon it.

I pointed out at #70:

The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership have this currently on their portal:

The world consumes 50 per cent more natural capital per year than the Earth can replenish. With resources diminishing, businesses have to face a stark choice; adapt or fail.

Getting the picture now Stupid, I won't hold my breath.

I note that the link to the Jensen site presented at #73 is now working.

Study it Stewpot.

Hardley's idiocies - continued: "... do you actually read what Lionel and I are saying?
Did you read Paul Street’s article from Truthdig that I linked? Have you read a single book by Derrick Jensen (e.g Endgame) or Chris Hedges (e.g Wages of Rebellion) or John Pilger (e.g The New Rulers if the World) or even Noam Chomsky’s new book Who Rules the World? It’s clear the answer is a big NO, yet you do not hesitate to try and critique them.
I discussed the growing interest in steady state economics and that slipped by you as well. Brian Czech wrote an outstanding book on sse entitled Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train in which he demolished the neoclassical economic model that underpins the current rapaciously violent neoliberal form of capitalism. It’s a must read. He points out in the book that unless we abandon the neoliberal model we are committed to a dire future. The book lays out all kinds of arguments that debunk the mantra of economic growth that pervades neoliberalism. Craig tried (and miserably failed) to criticise sse with fatuous arguments about efficiency, whereas in the real world we are light years away from achieving anything remotely close to sustainability in the developed world. Instead, most of the developed nations, in particular those with large populations or living on comparatively small land masses foster huge domestic ecological deficits and must reach beyond their own borders to obtain, via looting, violence and coercion, the resources they need to maintain these deficits. In other words, these nations ignore measures of attaining anything close to domestic sustainability by looting and exporting their ecological damage. This salient fact is ignored by simpletons like Bjorn Lomborg who write as if there is a tooth fairy."

Hardley, start to learn to tame your infinite minority complexes. You and your insanely morbid thoughts on how the world should be will NEVER prevail, NEVER, YOU IDIOT TWERP.

" Demolish capitalisms ..." and furher bullshit: go home to Canada and don't spoil civilzed european air. You have no place in a civilized society, you and your evil ecosystem services crap. You understand zero about this world because of lacking wisdom and intelligence.

And you evade to elucidate the hiatus in your cv. WHY???

It would appear that somebody is taking the Mik, in other words extracting the urine, repeating the whole of a post verbatim to add a few words from a crazed mind. This does not smell like OP in a sock but some other entity that once visited under a different moniker. Do I hear the rattling of keyes trying to act dumbed down having grown tired of his posts being deleted from the foot of a recent Guardian article and venturing here again?

Sigh :-(
So all you've got is dismantle it all?
As an example, how would that address population growth?
Perhaps you could look up DGR? Jensen is a founding member.

Jeff Harvey says:
"I would also restructure the tax system to ensure that huge corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, the oil giants etc. pay taxes. Right now, through various loopholes they are avoiding this, leaving the burden to be paid by the working and middle classes. Its obscene. And lastly I would prevent outsourcing for profit, unless we had global laws enacted to ensure that corporations based in the north were not allowed to relocate in the south in order to exploit a cheap workforce and to plunder the resources of these countries."

I think we are on the same side if you agree that the poor are being robbed to feed the rich. However your "Cure" is exactly the opposite of what is needed.

Reducing corporate taxation down to 10% or below has drastically reduced unemployment in ex-Comecon countries such as Bulgaria. In the Republic of Ireland low corporate taxes created the "Celtic Tiger".

Thus low corporate taxes benefit the "Workers" while the high corporate taxes that exist in the USA drive jobs overseas so that wages for the American "Working Cass" have stagnated for the last 20 years.

Here are nine graphs that show the dismal economic legacy of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama.. It is amazing what harm bad policies can do in a decade or two:
https://i1.wp.com/41.media.tumblr.com/629ca5ace437e832da4a77a6968bd233/…

By gallopingcamel (not verified) on 18 Sep 2016 #permalink

BTW, I think my reading may be rather more eclectic than yours.
:-)

Oops, apologies, the last comment of mine was for Lionel and Jeff, not gallopingcamel.

Good grief. So many comments from veritable idiots. I am exasperated by Stu2. How many times do I need to mention steady state economics only for him to completely ignore it and go back to trying - and failing - to attack Derrick Jensen?

Jensen intellectually annihilates anything Stu2 says. But I digress. Stu asks for alternatives to the current rapaciously greedy system, they are provided, and he ignores them.

He is a waste of time.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Sep 2016 #permalink

As for gormless Kim, what can I say. He/ she copy-pastes one of my posts then goes off into a brief, moronic, brainless ramble with no content or even attempt at a basic riposte. He/she is an uneducated idiot. A moron. A dork.

As for a 'hiatus in my CV', I don't know what the hell he/she is talking about. It's gobbledegook.

Kim, do us all a favour and go away. Permanently.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

Then back saunters in our old retired chemist or whatnot. Fan of Tony Heller/Steven Goddard. Gormless Camel. He suggests that corporate taxes encourage fuller employment. By this token he is either a far right libertarian, or just far to the right. Allow obscene profits to be internalised so that these wonderful corporate entities will stay at home instead if fleeing to the third world where they will set up sweat shops, exploiting weak or non-existent labour and environmental laws in order to bloat their profits. The profits are then returned to the investors and shareholders, and are most certainly not reinvested in the countries that are being exploited.

Bulgaria. Now there is GCs model country. Piss poor wages and rampant poverty but at least the corporations were enticed to stay at home. Have you been there Gormless? I was there last year. Not a pretty site. Nice country but wages are rock bottom. So not only are your highly trumped taxes low on the corporate sector, but they stay because they can pay bottom dollar. 300 Euros a month us a typical salary. It's pathetic.

Besides, as the Panama papers show, many of the large corporations avoid taxes through various loopholes including the setting up of offshore locations. We are talking literally many billions of dollars in taxes avoided. So who makes up that shortfall to ensure that the infrastructure of a civil society remains intact? The poor and middle classes, that's who. They carry the tax burden while the rich get away with murder.

It's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor in the United States. Look at the government bailouts for the banks after the 2008 fiasco. They see the government like an ATM machine.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

And one last response to Kim, the biggest idiot of the bunch. It pertains to the term 'ecosystem services'. I don't know why I am even lowering myself to his/her level here, but I will be brief. The term is based on an immensely solid empirical foundation, and by now is being studied both from an economic and ecological perspective. It's the foundation of many major economics courses and the subject of many academic books. Entire curricula are devoted to it in universities across the world. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focused on it.

So Kim, you daft clot, unless you have something better to say than your feeble attempts at ridicule, may I strongly suggest that you get lost. Oh, and if you do decide to embarrass yourself on here again, please enlighten us as to your academic qualifications. We already know that you don't have any, but your confirmation is welcome.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

To put the final nail in Stu2s coffin. He keeps asking:

"What is one specific changes that could be made to help
progress humanity towards better socio-economic outcomes?

Änd I keep answering:
STEADY F****** STATE ECONOMICS!!!!!

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520225145
http://steadystate.org/discover/definition/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy
https://www.amazon.com/Steady-State-Economics-2nd-Herman-Daly/dp/155963…
http://www.global-briefing.org/2012/07/the-steady-state-economy-life-af…

Now get off your butt and read for once....

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

To finally shut Kim up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_services
http://www.teebweb.org/resources/ecosystem-services/
http://www.unep.org/maweb/documents/document.300.aspx.pdf

And even a peer-reviwed journal:
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecosystem-services

Plus dozens of books. So what has Kim studied? NOTHING. NADA. NIX. He/she speaks off the top of their Dunning-Kruger afflicted noggin. No expertise in anything academic. No relevant education. Just makes things up on the spot. Idiot.

Again Kim, go away.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

I think my reading may be rather more eclectic than yours.

That is your problem right there, you think with your gut, i.e. for thinking read passing wind.

You don't think enough to connect this:

The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership have this currently on their portal:

The world consumes 50 per cent more natural capital per year than the Earth can replenish. With resources diminishing, businesses have to face a stark choice; adapt or fail.

with the Steady State Economics that Jeff has frequently put in front of your nose and which is what such as Derrick Jensen are pointing to.

And the galloper unwittingly makes an argument as to why the current global economic system is a failure, that jobs migrate to areas where operating costs are lower, where wages are depressed (slave labour - see Jensen et. all.), environmental regulation lax to non existent so that the slave labour also suffers the consequences of degraded and dangerous (toxins and hazardous waste — look at ship breaking in e.g. Bangladesh) living conditions.

The underpaid suffer the externalities of doing whatever business is involved. That GC is far more of an incentive than any tax regime, a tax which was put in place to cover the costs foisted on the population at large by the externalities with the business staying at home.

What is it with these dupes that they see only one side of a situation? Are they ignorant dupes or really malignant operators protecting the exploitative businesses? It is getting to the point where it is difficult to believe anybody who can operate a web browser is as stupid as implied by their vacuous utterings.

Great posts Lionel. It would be great to meet up with you one day and talk about these issues.

The real problem with people like Stu2 - and let's be honest, there are lots of them - is that they are incapabl;e of thinking outside of a limited self-imposed mental 'box'. They abhor those who point out the obvious - that the rich nations are consuming natural capital as if there is no tomorrow and that the consequences of contunuing this business-as-usual ethic is disaster. Derrick Jensen is way ahead of his time. The propositions he presents in Endgame are patently obvious to anyone who bothers to read them. Our current economic systems are akin to a train without brakes careening along the track towards a cliff, and we can be sure there are those on board like Stu2 who think that a tweak here and a tweak there - in metaphoric terms like throwing a few grains of sand on the tracks - will somehow slow the train fast enough to avoid a calamity.

Aside from that they deny, deny, deny and go on denying that the current system in its present form cannot be reconciled within limits imposed by nature. Jensen, Hedges and others see the impending collapse, write about it, and are scorned for lacking 'visions of hope'.

Our species is on an insane quest towards self destruction. There are no ifs and buts about it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
SSE is a theory that has not performed in practice, even on local scales.
It's the 'steady' part of the theory that doesn't work not unlike the similar SST in cosmology and astrophysics.

Logic fail from:

a) ambiguity

steady state or superstring with the former having been shown as false,

b) false equivalence

the foundations of SSE and SST are in no way comparable,

c) no example of SSE to judge by.

"Stu2, do you actually read what Lionel and I are saying?"

Of course not, that idiot never lets facts get in the way of his faith, so it's worthless for him reading it: he won't care what it says.

Well there you have it. One of our Dunning-Kruger alumni (Stu2) says steady state economics won't work. It hasn't been even tried because powerful, neoliberal forces resist any notion that there are limits to growth and to consumption. To Stu2, this is enough reason not to consider it. Moreover, Stu2 clearly believes that any economic system which adheres to the belief that economic development should take into consideration damage too the environment is ridiculous. He prefers to stick with a system that is decimating the planets marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats.

Stu, you realise that you are a complete idiot. Stuck in your own myopic shell. Please follow in Kim's footsteps and get lost.

By Jeffrey Harvey (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
You are appearing incapable of answering a simple question.
SSE is a theory that has not exhibited any results.
The question asks for a practical change to help address a specific issue.
As mentioned earlier, as an example, Jensen and Pimentel both highlight global population growth as a real issue.
What is one change that you would make to address that?
If bringing down current systems is still your answer, then try and demonstrate how that would specifically address that issue.

And Jeff,
I don't wish to be offensive, but your analogies and mixed metaphors bear a remarkable resemblance to the 'fire and brimstone' sermons delivered in religion including paganism.
I suggest, with respect, that you follow your own advice and start thinking outside that 'doomsday' or 'judgement day' box that you are stuck in atm.
Our species is not all bad and suffering from some type of original sin battle with God and the devil or countless variations of the same.
Neither is our species all good and bathing under divine light and inspiration.

Nothing has changed here. It is hopeless to discuss anything with a pompous jackass like Jeff Harvey who calls so many people "Gormless".

I will drop by this echo chamber from time to time for laughs.

By gallopingcamel (not verified) on 19 Sep 2016 #permalink

stu 2, gallopingcamel: so true

Hardley is a low-class wannabe pseudoscientist, got a degree from Liverpool (what a prominent name in academia, jajajaja) at late age 38 on something boring with wasps, does not answer the question what he has done for 10 years between age 20 and 30 (maybe a canadian truck driver, in jail, who knows). His funny title of being side professor for a discipline called environmentalism advocacy without any true science is funny in its own. But over all he is a decadent nihilist and has no money.

Great to see the anti environmental brigade out in force. Where to begin with these idiots? Let's start with Stu. He still won't say why an egalitarian steady state approach to economics won't work. Instead, he only says that it hasn't been tried on a large scale. I explained why that is and he ignores it. I also explained that it represents a very large number of ecological economists and the number is growing. I provided links including books and as expected, these were ignored.

Jensen and like minded thinkers do not see population as the biggest threat but inequality and uneven consumption. It's obvious from his propositions in Endgame. Stu hasn't read these, either.

Until he is willing to learn about SSE and better understand how prevailing doctrine is resisting it, then I may as well be speaking to a wall.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

Now for Gormless Camel, our senile old right wing coot. I did respond to his bullshit argument yesterday, explaining that corporations avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes anyway through various loopholes. He ignores it. Then I demolished his appalling example if Bulgaria as a country where corporate taxes are low. So are wages and environmental regulations are virtually non existent. Essentially, the bow down to the corporate sector the government essentially de regulated the economy, a race to the bottom. The result is rampant poverty and corporations running amok.

This was GCs shining example. I will bet he has never been to Bulgaria. I was there last year. Ouch. The same GC downplays climate change with arguments from known shills. If anyone is a jackass it's him.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

One final point re: GCs description of Deltoid as an 'echo chamber'. Talk about hypocrisy. Over 95% of the scientific community agree on the causes of the recent warming - us - and most of these strongly argue that measures are needed to tackle this urgent and growing problem. GC, for his part, sides with a miniscule number of shills and scientists on the academic fringe (e.g. people with little standing in any field) - most of them very old - who say that warming is either (a) mostly natural, (b) harmless or may even be beneficial. These clots express themselves through blogs and think tanks, all of which endlessly recycle the arguments of one another.

There's your real echo chamber.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

Last and most certainly least. Kim, who is either one of three people: Jonas (most likely), Betula, or Olaus. Or perhaps Sunspot/Mack. Its time to get this twit banned again. They always appear to have a way to slip through the net.

I see the same recycled smears from this bonafide jerk, as if these morons have their own miniature echo chamber.

Note how Kim merely stands behind Stu and GC like a little doggy barking away. At least those two simpletons advanced some arguments, albeit weak and easily demolished, but Kim just brays away with various insults.

First, he/she knows a lot about me and has looked me up. I am flattered. Clearly this imbecile has little better to do. But then Kim goes after my original university (Liverpool), which is hilarious. Its ranked around 125 in the world, which places it in the top 1-3% of universities. The department in which I was trained has produced some of the top evolutionary ecologists in the world, people I was privileged to be lectured by and work alongside, like Mike Begon, Geoff Parker and Leigh Simmons. All of these people are world famous leaders in their respective fields.

Kim (its gotta be Jonas) wants to know more about my CV. I am happy to oblige. At present, I rank among the top 2% of researchers in my field of the ecology of plant-insect interactions based on citations and my h-factor. Sure I started late but since I publish 10-15 papers every year I have made up any temporal deficit. I now have 176 (16 this year) and many more in the pipeline.

But let's turn the tables. Kim, what university did you study at? How many publications/citations have you accumulated? What actually IS your profession? Let's be honest here. You have no academic pedigree. If you did, we'd know about it. Deniers are experts at shouting the bonafides of a few scientists who downplay climate change, but when these are countered with the resumes of scientists with much higher standing, out come the smears.

And the fact is that my arguments are not only backed up empirically, but are supported by every major scientific organization and academy in every nation on Earth. You clowns rely on a few bought and paid for shills or other self-educated Dunning-Kruger wannabes that often appear on WUWT and other contrarian blogs.

So Kim, if you have an argument to make - go ahead an make it. Otherwise take your sock puppets and jump in the lake with them.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
You put up SSE as an answer to a specific question.
You have provided NO EVIDENCE that it will address specific isdues
The question doesn't require me to provide evidence, it's your answer-not mine.
And Jeff?
What leads you to claim that Stu 2 is an 'anti environmentalist'?
Your tendency to label people or assign them to 'tribes' is rather unscientific and undemocratic of you IMHO.

Before you challenge me any more on this, read what SSE is about... its about reconciling economic development based on the ability of natural systems to replenish and repair themselves.

One way to achieve this is to internalize the costs of environmental damage wrought by economic activity. Full cost pricing will alert society to the dangers of overexploitation of natural capital. The current neoliberal capitalistmodel is devouring nature, rapidly reducing the ability of these systems to provide a range of vital provisioning services. Leading scholars like Robert Costanza, Dolf de Groot, Geoffrey Heal and Herman Daly are strong advocates of full cost pricing which is an important tenet of SSE. Not surprisingly, many of the most powerful corporations are resisting full cost pricing because at present they can pass off these costs onto the public who have little choice but to accept them. Once we internalize the value of the vital ecosystem services that permit humans to exist and persist and which underpin our material economies, then of course this is going to mean that the private sector will have to adjust and this will negatively affect their short-term profits. Given the power they wield to control governments (indeed they ARE the US government), then its no small wonder that we have gotten nowhere near internalizing the value of nature's services.

But if we don't find some way to rein in this runaway train we are fucked. I've said this to you over and over again Stu but I might as well be speaking to a wall. You just do not understand the concept of ecological deficits and services and the role the latter plays in sustaining human civilization. Jensen is correct when he says that the current model is devouring nature at an ever increasing rate, imperiling our mid to long term prospects and even the survival of humanity.

If you want me to further demolish the core tenets of neoclassical economic theory I will - those being efficiency, substitutability and human ingenuity. But it seems to me that your understanding of ecological economics is virtually nil, and you are expecting me to educate you. Think again. I have far more valuable minds to teach than some lazy guy who believes in the tooth fairy version of the world as laid out by a pseudo-acaddmic self promoting Dane.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

I label you as an anti-environmentalist Stu because your views are akin to luke warmers - meaning humans are responsible for climate change and other environmental problems but we can easily work within the current system to achieve sustainability.

Wrong. We can't. Impossible. Not unless we are able to wrest power away from a tiny minority intent on maintaining the status quo and on short term profit maximization. You seem to think that we can leave these criminals in power and that all challenges can be dealt with. I disagree. And the science is on my side. We've known for 40 years or more that we are going in the wrong direction and what have we achieved? Virtually nothing. Climate change is continuing unabated, with 2016 set to shatter old records by a country mile. Recent studies in Science report that a large number of terrestrial ecosystems are on the brink of collapse. Wealth is being concentrated more now than at any time in human history, with the elites consolidating power. The US is a plutocracy. Corporations control every lever of government. They've won. Hence Chris Hedges call for full scale resistance movements to form.

You just do not understand the scale of the predicament. But then again you are not trained to. I am.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

Hardley "we can leave these criminals in power"

Stop your insanities now, Hardley, before you get sued and sentenced by objective justice to detainment. Green fanaticism is no recipe for the modern world. You don't belong to the modern world as backward oriented stone age moron. And stop your weird belief in virtual reality ecosystem crap.

Kim, do me a favor. F*** off.
Or better still, I will get you banned.
Sued? By who? Hilarious.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Sep 2016 #permalink

"At least those two simpletons advanced some arguments, albeit weak and easily demolished"

Hence the sockpuppet finds it best not to make any arguments.

Stupid never really makes any either, though, merely proclamations that are vaguely worded for "implausible deniability" later.

"One final point re: GCs description of Deltoid as an ‘echo chamber’"

There are two reasons for an "echo chamber"

a) People describing the reality of an event will all agree on that event
b) People just picking up a claim without checking

You can find out which is the case in any putative echo chamber BY LOOKING AT THE EVIDENCE.

You will find that lappers and the denial crowd love the latter and think that this is a fine thing. Only for them, though. You're not allowed to echo claims they don't like. Only "pleasant" echoes are acceptable to these partisan morons. You'll find that the science agrees and echoes the same claims for the first reason. But this is NOT acceptable to the deniers, because they do not want the need to do anything about it.

http://steadystate.org/discover/definition/
Jeff.
Once again you are assigning me to a 'tribe', this time labeling it 'Luke Warmer'.
A person is not 'anti environmentalist' if they question the veracity of SSE theory (definition above).
The question asked for a specific, single change to address a singular issue.
Overthrowing current systems is not answering the question.
Your view of human history is approaching revisionism.
History teaches us that bringing down systems is bad for the environment.
I did not claim that all Jensen focuses on is population, I clearly said it's a key focus.
You also said earlier that countries which are OK ecologically is because of their relatively small population.
The idea of making a market out of pollution actually plays into the hands of the people whom you purport to despise.
And despite your bleating otherwise, there is plenty of evidence that there are opportunities to kick great environmental goals on local, state and national scales.

Lionel.
Jeff's labeling tendencies are a good example of false equivalence.
SST and SSE both assume a 'Steady State'.
Along with the universe, species on earth, including humans, are not in a 'Steady State' and neither are their economics, demographics, markets, surrounding environment & etc.
The concept that everything in the universe is contained in some type of holding pattern has been proven to be incorrect.

As expected, Stu fails the grasp the concept of internalising the value of ecosystem services. He has a clearly superficial understanding of the term and of ecological economics in general, and yet despite this he tries once again - and fails - at his critique. The field of steady state economics goes well beyond the shallow aspect of marketing pollution and once again encompasses full cost pricing to internalise the costs of economic activity on the environment.

Stu essentially needs a crash course in the field. He clearly is a novice who is being confronted with information that he knows nothing about yet he still attempts to dismiss it. 'Nature and the Marketplace' by economist Geoffrey Heal would be a good place for him to start. Even a read of the first chapter would be informative. Costanza's work, especially his 1997 Nature paper also lays out the essential information. But it's very difficult for me, a trained ecologist with years of relevant experience, to start from scratch with someone whose grasp of ecological economics is virtually non existent. My Master's students are at least taught the basics of the three classes of ecosystem services and their societal significance. Stu is not even close to them, as his last posts reveal.

Then Stu talks about some illusory opportunities in dealing with environmental problems at various scales. All this while Rome metaphorically continues to burn and bodies of empirical evidence categorically prove that we are very close to tipping points in terms of regional and systemic collapse of ecosystems and more vitally critical ecosystem services that underpin the material economy and human well being. All this while a rapaciously greedy and unsustainable form of capitalism called neoliberalism is entrenching and consolidating itself, speeding our descent into the abyss. And Stu has the gall to lecture me about his vacuous form of optimism.

Anti environmental indeed.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
One of the people I work with sometimes is a PhD in environmental economics.
Another in industrial ecology.
Both are out here in the field actually kicking goals and TBL objectives by working with the community.
I note once again that you are appearing incapable of
answering a simple question.
Let me help you.
Current socio-economic systems are not going to be dismantled overnight even though there are definitely problems.
Focus on a specific issue (eg population growth) and outline one practical, measureable socio-economic change that you would make if you had the chance.
If you come back again bleating about neoliberalism and the evils of capitalism and broad political rhetoric and etc, I think I will have to score you an F for this exercise.

I don't give a rat's ass if the people you work with are working in relevant fields. Some of my colleagues work in microbial ecology or molecular biology and I know little about their fields of research and I am not afraid to admit it. You don't have even a basic grasp of ecological economics. You've never read anything about the field, and here you are, a total and utter neophyte, judging my expertise in related areas. You have remarkable hubris for a know-nothing. You have Dunning-Kruger written all over you.

I have already stated some of the important tenets of a steady state economic approach that reconciles damage inflicted on natural systems and various ecological services by internalizing these costs. I've read a huge amount of literature on it and several economists speak at the course I teach in Amsterdam on this very subject. Before you whittle on any more and further expose your total and utter ignorance, I suggest that you read a little and at least learn the basics.

Your only recourse is to keep coming back to my argument that capitalism doesn't work. The current form most certainly is not working and is destroying the ecological foundation on which our material economy rests. I will say it again and hope that some of this at least percolates through your thicj head: there is no way - NO WAY - to deal with vast inequalities in wealth, poverty, and attendant environmental destruction under the current dominant mutant form of capitalism called neoliberalism. NONE. ZERO. Get that into your brain. If we can somehow make the system more egalitarian, and take power away from the wealthy few and create more social justice across the world, then we may have a chance. But there is not a snowball's chance in hell that neoliberal capitalism can be revamped, rehabilitated, or changed to accommodate nature and eliminate poverty.

Now you can take your F grade and shove it. I am sick of your blatant willful ignorance. You are clearly not nearly on the same intellectual page as me and it shows. Your arguments are an embarrassment.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff’s labeling tendencies are a good example of false equivalence.
SST and SSE both assume a ‘Steady State’.

Jackarse, it was you who introduced SST, but now you have removed the ambiguity and I think I know which SST you are on about.

This does not change the fact that conditions of Steady State Economics are in no way comparable to a steady state universe, for the former has multidimensional dynamics of interaction.

You put up SSE as an answer to a specific question.
You have provided NO EVIDENCE that it will address specific isdues

What part of, 'c) no example of SSE to judge by.' do you not understand?

But again, your response demonstrates that you don't understand the basics of what could constitute SSE.

Go read the section 'Far Pacifica' in Carl Safina's 'Song For the Blue Ocean' to learn about the rapacious activities that are decimating oceanic species in once remote Pacific island groups specifically Palau.

Modern humans have forgotten the fable of 'The Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs', wipe out breeding populations of fish and there is no future in fishing. Such depletion forms much of the subject matter for Professor Callum Roberts' books too. If you cannot grasp why this is important to SSE then there is little hope of having a sensible discussion with you.

Whatever the topic, your track record of owning ignorance is poor.

Lionel, This clown is certainly frustrating. he doesn't read a single article/linke we put up here, but instead covers his ears and eyes and shouts, "I am not listening!!! I am not listening!!! Blah! Blah! Blah!". etc. etc. etc.

He wanted answers and we have provided them, but what he really wants for us to say that we all believe in the tooth fairy and that our political and economic systems are wonderful and just and socially equitable and that we all live happily in shining beacons of democracy and that our corporate sector consists of humane institutions that want to help feed and clothe the poor, eliminate poverty, provide reliable employment and take care of nature and that if we all just understood this then we'd realize how wonderful and joyous everything is.

What a complete idiot. And the more he spews forth, the worse he looks. By now he is a total and utter embarrassment. I've been telling some of my friends and colleagues the Stu2 version of the world and their mouths are agape. He cannot discuss the basics of ecological economics so he retreats into the "Neoliberal capitalism is wonderful and I will defend it until my last breath and I don't wanna hear how its bad" shell. Given there are lots of jokers who think this way, it makes me realize more fully why the world is heading for disaster and why we may as a species be totally and utterly f*****.

There are excellent sources of information on ecosystem services and steady state economics all over the internet and in books. Entire issues of major journals like PNAS have been devoted to them. Entire faculties of some universities are studying them. Many academics and sholars are well aware that the current system is unsustainable and that we are destroying our life support systems at an increasing rate. Simpletons like Stu just son't want to hear it. They want to think that we can go on as we are with a minor adjustment here and a tweak there and that the tooth fairy will then come and save us. He is exasperating in his naievte and ignorance.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

Another sign of our march to doom, yes doom you dullards:

Is India in the throes of a fever outbreak?

Mark well this line:

But experts believe that climate change and rapid urbanisation are also triggering outbreaks.

Shame there was not more detail on that aspect but I guess that would need a sub-ed to get off his butt instead of writing ambiguous sub-heads such as 'Voting ends in Labour leader contest' which implies after the vote there is a leadership contest.

That aside, these fever outbreaks in a world where greed in the food industry, and ignorance amongst the populace when confronting doctors for prescriptions, has squandered our ability to use many antibiotics successfully.

An attitude change through education, and the media could do much better if not licking the boots of their owners such as Murdoch and fearing advertiser backlash. The global economy requires complete fiscal restructuring not one simple remedy.

I mean if your house fabric is deteriorating do you repair and restore or just give it a lick of paint to make it look good. That latter is the type of simplistic solution the dipstick Ste2 is reaching for. Fool. Yes I am calling you names, if the cap fits wear it.

It's an F.
Sorry Jeff.
:-(

Its an F ***
Sorry Stu2.

You aren't academically worthy to lick my boots. Now get lost.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

Nice article, "History keeps proving prophets of eco-apocalypse wrong", here,

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-09-19-history-keeps-pro…

"A 2016 paper by Australian scientists Albert Parker and Cliff Ollier suggests that the altimetry record suffers from errors larger than its trends, and “returns a noisy signal so that a +3.2 mm/year trend is only achieved by arbitrary ‘corrections’”."

"The closest thing we have to a global plague is the infestation of professional environmentalists that traipse to the world’s top tourist destinations to confabulate new terrors designed to intentionally transform the economic development model of the world, which has produced so much health and prosperity since the industrial revolution."

"Those are the fruits of constant, shrill, exaggerated alarmism. Get proven wrong by history often enough, and four out of five ordinary people will stop believing you. And good for them, too. Perhaps environmentalists should mind the environment instead of trying to rule the world."

This blog used to be about "Climate Alarmism", now it's the virtues of communism.
Enjoy ;)

Oh dear, here comes another of the gormless squad (GSW) opining that anyone who opposes the neoliberal mutant form of capitalism must be a communist. Yes folks, this is the level of discourse among the denialati on Deltoid. Over the years I have encountered a number of them on this blog and not a single one if them is remotely intelligent or qualified in the areas in which they comment. Not one. Jonas, Sunspot, Rednose, Betula, GSW, Stu2, Kim, Mack, Olaus, Galloping Camel... if this sad lot is the best that the other side has to offer, then no wonder they are either ignored or considered laughingstocks.

Its amazing what the empirical evidence can do. For several years we were bombarded with posts by this lot about a GW hiatus; that's history. Now they are left with silly conspiracies about data manipulation and communism and other crap. It's telling that denial of AGW has morphed the way it has. The good news is that many of the most vocal deniers here appear to have thrown in the towel as the evidence overwhelmed them. The bad news is that our species is still on course for disaster.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

And GSW pops up with the blatherings of the cousin of 'The Wizard of Oz'

By Ivo Vegter*

I am an independent journalist, specialising in opinion columns.

So he cannot claim to be an economist, ecologist, a climate scientist or any form of scientist and we should believe him why GSW?

As for the rest of your bubkes ....? Bloody fool.

Just finished reading the article GSW linked to in some right wing rag. Advice to those with common sense on here: don't waste your time on it. It's aimed at people with 2 brain cells or less, is full of egregious errors, and was written by a complete unknown. It's actually so bad that it ends up parodying itself. It's telling that GSW pours through the internet dredging for this kind of dreadful tripe. What a sad little person he is.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Sep 2016 #permalink

What a sad little person he is.

Below the gutter (press) and into the sewers. Vegter is a good fit for a Delingpole twin.

Lionel.
The question asked for a specific socio-economic change to address a specific socio-economic issue.
Replacing the whole system with something theoretical is not answering that question.
Jeff.
Stu 2 does not believe neoliberalism capitalism is wonderful and to be defended till the last breath.
Neither is Stu 2 a denier, an anti environmentalist, a Luke warmer nor all the other labels and tribes you are assigning to him.
Unlike you apparently, Stu 2 is interested in working with communities and their environments to kick measureable, genuine, practical TBL goals.
Unlike you apparently, Stu 2 knows that the most successful way to create change is one step at a time.

And Jeff.
I need to thank you as I have learned something here from you.
And also, has it occurred to you that the vast majority of homo sapiens on this planet, including those who live in 'developed' nations, would view you as one one of 'the wealthy few' ?

And for someone who claims to despise elitism, the comment @# 31 is highly ironic.
BTW I have no interest or desire or wish, whatsoever, under any circumstances to lick your boots.
I would be interested to know however how a comment and attitude like that would help the world move towards your wish for egalitarianism and social justice????

And Lionel.
'Complete fiscal restructuring' has been attempted many, many times throughout human history.
Please provide an example where that has actually improved environmental outcomes particularly in countries suffering from 'greed in the food industry and ignorance amongst the populace'?

And Lionel,
You offer attitude changes and education as something that could be done.
What is one attitude change or one change in access to education that would help humanity to move in that direction?

'Unlike you apparently, Stu 2 knows that the most successful way to create change is one step at a time.'

We don't have the time.

Change will be forced upon us with a violence our species has likely never experienced before (although according to DNA evidence homo sapiens went through some existential bottleneck before).

At some point during my life there will be cults who will slap capital punishment on anyone who chops any tree :)

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 22 Sep 2016 #permalink

#44 - educate the concept of value. Special consideration for the value of environment (this is what our existence depends on, remember).
Educate Kahneman/Tversky - cognitive weaknesses that used to be evolutionary beneficial but are now pathologies.
Unfortunately education does cost time - which we don't have.

Syria is like our future.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 22 Sep 2016 #permalink

cRR Kampen?
Why is there no time?

‘Complete fiscal restructuring’ has been attempted many, many times throughout human history.

OK provide examples that had even a ghost of a chance of achieving anything like SSE.

As for greed in the food industry, why did you come back on that for the manner in which you did so is more evidence of your wilful ignorance in spite of many sources being presented to you which would explain the issues and provide the topics which require education.

Now if you don't like the attitude of Jeff, myself and others that are adopted when discussing or answering you then your continued wilful ignorance in spite of the considerable effort in assisting you to overcome this ignorance make your repeated simplistic, even flippant, responses highly insulting. In former times you would have been invited to 'grass before breakfast'.

You are one rude ignoramus who thinks he knows more than he does. Yes the Dunning-Kruger strong it is in you.

I am getting to the point where I feel 'dirty' exchanging with you.

‘Unlike you apparently, Stu 2 knows that the most successful way to create change is one step at a time.’

And is trying like hell to make sure no first step is taken.

Odd that.

And from where do you get your "unlike you, apparently"? That must mean a quotable appearance of text here that would promote the claim you made, right? So where is that text? Or have you just made up a claim out of thin air. Again.

"I don’t give a rat’s ass if the people you work with are working in relevant fields"

Given Stupid is completely corrupt and has lied virulently all over this blog about even less relevant things, how the hell do we know that his workers are anything other than a figment of his imagination, conjured so as to pretend a relevance to him that he does not deserve?

Sigh :-(
Lionel.
You raised 'greed in the food industry and ignorance of the populace' as issues @#29.
Launching into personal abuse is an interesting response to a question about that.
You and Jeff are assisting me and it is largely about attitude, good pick.
SSE advocates some type of benevolent global bureaucratic dictatorship that will hold the world's economies in a vaguely defined 'Steady State' that will be achieved by this benevolent dictatorship redistributing wealth and resources.
It has been attempted many times on a state scale throughout human history.
There is no evidence that it benefits 'the environment'.
In places like France and China and Russia it often resulted in environmental carnage.
But I agree that a lack of basic education is a global issue and an underlying cause of socio-economic problems.
What can be done about that?

cCR Kampen @#45?
Cults who slap capital punishment on anyone who chops any tree?
On what religious/ideological basis will these cults exist?

Stu, will you stop with your lying about SSE and trying to dig yourself out of a hole by claiming to know what is tenets are? I know you are stupid, indeed we all know this well on here, but each of your posts has me reaching for a barf bag.

You have read NOTHING about SSE except maybe snippets from one of the corporate media outlets that you worship and you have the unmitigated audacity to claim that its core tenet is some kind of global dictatorship. What a load of bollocks. You also fail to address the fact that the globe is already in thrall to an economic dictatorship under the guise of neoliberal capitalism. Moreover, a SSE approach has not been tried on a 'state scale' throughout history; any attempt at full cost pricing has been repeatedly suppressed by transnational corporations and the governments they own because this would mean that they would not be able to pass environmental damage off onto the public sector which has little choice but ti accept it.

Your comment about 'environmental carnage' is also a howler; there was plenty of that in the developed world (and still is) but much of that is now exported to the poor countries of the south whose resources countries like the United States, many of the most affluent in Europe, Japan and now China are plundering to counter domestic ecological deficits. There's abundant evidence for this - I gave a 1.5 hour lecture on it last week at Wageningen University and will soon run a course on the VU University on it - but since you just cherry pick your information you are clearly unaware of it.

I put up a number of links several days ago outlining the basics of SSE as an alternative model to the mantra of unlimited economic growth under neoclassical economics and guess what - you ignored all of it. Lionel has done the same and you ignore his links and then come back with comments that are frankly so disturbingly simple that they ultimately become funny. The reason we ridicule you - and we have every reason to do so - is because of your wilful ignorance. You wear it like a badge of honour. Entire university faculties and research groups in the US, UK and elsewhere are exploring SSE and you summarily dismiss it with benthic comments about benevolent dictatorships. In doing so you are smearing some very esteemed economists like Herman Daly, John Gowdy, Stephan Viederamnn and many others whose grasp of the field is light years ahead of yours. At the same time you blindly ignore that fact that, as I said, much of the world is already in the grips of a corporate dictatorship.

Maybe we should start with books by Dr. Suess or fairy tales with you and try to build from that. I simply cannot believe that any of your colleagues takes a thing you say seriously. The inanity of your belief system is laid out bare here on Deltoid. I resisted responding yesterday because I was very busy doing more important things at work like lecturing and also because you are a time waster. A troll of the highest order. The term is wholly appropriate for you. If you were actually willing to read some material by any of the aforementioned economists or many others as well as a snippet of the literature on ecosystem services, then I would be inclined to give you a break. But you aren't and you come into Deltoid armed with Dunning-Kruger infused confidence (arrogance more like) while in reality you don't even understand the basics. Try and critique the book by Brian Czech, or any of the papers in the journal Ecological Economics that explore SSE or the internalisation of valuing ecosystem services. Read some of Gretchen Daily's excellent studies. But please don't try and pass off your ignorance by coming in here with utter bull**** about benevolent dictatorships., If you do, I and others will continue to ridicule you.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

As an addendum, I am just relived that none of my colleagues or students share the same myopic world vision of Stu2. How is it possible to discuss anything with someone who knows so little and yet is unwilling to learn based on some silly pride-based value system? Calling SSE an attempt at a benevolent dictatorship was really the final straw for me. Nothing in its core tenets - nothing - points at a political dictatorship. Its an approach that has a huge and growing number of professional adherents which believes that our obsession with economic growth is a root cause for massive environmental destruction, wealth concentration and rampant poverty. It also argues that it is imperative that we reconcile environmental damage with economic pricing - in other words, in order to alert society to the dangers of overconsumption and ecological deficits, full cost pricing internalises the value of nature. Its a wonderful alternative to the externalisation of environmental damage that is routinely passed of onto society and that has implications for human well being down the road.

By now it is clear that the majority of the wealthy, populous nations have ecological footprints that exceed their own land masses by many times, and that the only way these deficits can be maintained is to reach beyond their own borders to obtain - often via coercion and violence as Jensen points out - resources and capital. In a linear world this would not be a problem but the biosphere is a closed system. Yes, the damage inflicted on systems can be repaired, but at present the wealthy nations are taking more alone from natural systems than these systems can sustainably replace. Again, evidence for this is everywhere. This may work in the short term but in the longer term it is a recipe for disaster. SSE attempts to rectify this in its approach.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

'I am getting to the point where I feel ‘dirty’ exchanging with you.'
I'm jealous. Am far beyond that.

#53, effectively on yours. The same people who are wilfully destroying the planet will do an about-face when they have their destruction and will then destroy people again from the opposite of the Ideology of Plunder. Much like the happy nazi's in the Third Reich who became happy communists in the DDR with no change whatsoever in their lack of ethics.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

Rubbish Jeff.
At its core, SSE is a bureaucratic 'wet dream' .

#57, at its core SSE is a concept of Adam Smith's and according to him it would, and should be attained thru 'laissez-faire'.
Up to a point I do agree. The wartorn part of Syria is quite SSE. Since that is our future, a global SSE will simply be forced upon us by reality and trust me - it will be FAR SMALLER, FAR WEAKER, FAR POORER than any SSE arrived at through bureaucratic means intended to get the E sustainable. Time has run out, your choice is clear and it is clearly criminal.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

Rubbish Jeff.
At its core, SSE is a bureaucratic ‘wet dream’ .

And there, after all the efforts of Jeff, myself and others lies evidence of the intellectual and moral nakedness of this creature, a creature who is clearly another throw back to pre hunter-gatherer thought processes.

It is clearly a waste of time trying to educate 'His Wilful Ignorance' as he refuses to study anything we put in front of him.

Your Wilful Ignorance is an insult and much more so than any titles, titles which are there for a purpose - to identify something or somebody for what it, they are and using these for their proper purpose is not to indulge in personal abuse. If the cap fits wear it.

If you don't like it you know what to do — pay more attention to sources presented and stop indulging yourself with corporate sponsored propaganda.

I had some more examples of resource and population exploitation for you but what is the point of presenting it.

But from one of his own sources:

But poverty isn’t just a factor of income. It’s also about deprivation of basic needs such as education and employment; lack of basic capabilities to function; lack of purpose and aspiration; lack of autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Exactly. But how as this situation arisen - by exploitation.

I have suggested Carl Safina's book where 'Far Pacifica' describes how predatory fishing using explosive and cyanide, the latter to capture fish live for that more lucrative market) at the behest of money wealth on e.g. mainland China has devasted coral reefs the nurseries and habitat of so many species, robbing the local population of their sustenance. Those poisoned fish are easy to catch but tend not to live long at their destination because their intestinal system are damaged by the cyanide, although the fish are still swimming, their first meal kills them.

Safina's description of the Hong-Kong (alone) fish marketing and eating business is both harrowing and disturbing - so wasteful at every stage of the trade from catching, to transport to cooking and eating throwing away heaps of uneaten food. He tells of a large Napoleon Wrass being kept alive whilst its flesh was systematically sliced off and cooked. That was Hong-Kong, then there is Singapore, Tawain, Shanghai. This was over a decade ago. If this practice still continues then hope for sustainability collapses as fast as the coral reefs.

Then there is Sylvia Earl — here with a TED talk.

Pay attention, all these are parts of the big programme. Some stuff on the rape of Africa in preparation.

"Rubbish Jeff.
At its core, SSE is a bureaucratic ‘wet dream’ ."

So says ourt uneducated, naive, narrow minded idiotic contributor.

Stu2, I am so sick of you. Good Lord you are stupid. Wow is correct.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

It's OK Lionel.
Don't fuss.
Your efforts have not been wasted.
:-)

I can't resist because I can't stop laughing.
Jeff.
Having been both a student and a lecturer at tertiary institutions, let me offer you a little pearl of wisdom from those experiences.
Of course your students are going to deliver what they know you want to hear.
You hold the ability to pass or fail them.
If any of my students had answered the previous simple questions I asked you in the same manner you have - after giving them numerous chances to answer the actual question rather than attempting to answer another one, I would not be inclined to pass them if they persisted.
That's why you got an F from me.
:-)

Stu2, may I give you some advice, You know nothing about me, what I lecture or how I grade my students. I was rated as the second leading lecturer in my faculty for the course I ran on science and advocacy in 2014. I grade my students according to the strength of their arguments. Your attempt to smear and impugn me reveals more about you than it does me.

Heres a fact: you are an intellectual lightweight who thinks he has knowledge in fields he has never studied and has only gleaned facts from sources like Sky News (that link you put up here months ago from the 'reformed' jihadist was so utterly puerile as to be hilarious, yet its telling that you thought it had some sort of deep meaning).

Another point: given that I am light years ahead of you in terms of professional qualifications, you are in not position to grade me on ANYTHING. Your knowledge base is about at the level of a mediocre high school student, as evidence by your recent comment of sse being a firm of benevolent global dictatorship. This comment alone revealed your total inability to grasp even the basics of a field studied in the curricula of many universities. Like many Dunning-Kruger afflicted nobodies, you could not critique the field of sse with facts but with various comments like this.

No wonder you would not want too debate me publicly. I would eat you alive and you know it. That is why you an an anonymous anti-environmental spewing nobody on a blog. Your 'pearls of wisdom' are in fact faeces of stupidity. That you are/were a lecturer at ANY institution is a terrifying thought, given how utterly stupid you are.

Now please, go away.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Sep 2016 #permalink

To give the people here some indication of the basal stupdityb of Stu2s assertions, a huge body of literature exists on steady state solutions, including full cost pricing, to current economic problems and the mantra of ' economic growth'. For instance:

http://steadystate.org/discover/reading-list/

A huge and growing body of literature right there. How much has our Australian simpleton read of it? NONE. Has he studied relevant fields? NO.

Despite this, he feel self assured enough to fob off an entire field with flippant comments that are not even worthy of a polite response. This, folks, is how climate change deniers think. Welcome to the mind set of Stu(pid)2. They all do it. GSW with his mega-cherry picked attempts to downplay what the majority of scientists know and have proven: that climate change not only threatens Arctic species such as Polar Bears, but a massive array of species, populations, communities and ecosystems as is proven in the empirical literature. Craig (who does not deny climate change) but who thinks that the current form of capitalism, with a few minor adjustments, is the solution to every problem we face, and who thinks that the wealthy nations do not loot and plunder resources form the underdeveloped ones, despite (once again) volumes of evidence proving it to be so.

The rest of this bunch I have encountered on here are similarly challenged in the cognitive department. Stu2 is such a pain because he camouflages his deceit and ignorance in rhetoric. He asks for solutions, they are provided, and then he summarily dismisses them with the wave of a hand as being 'unrealistic' with excuses like 'they have not yet been tried' or 'they represent a benevolent form of global dictatorship' and other similar piffle.

In a public debate this kind of obfuscation would be exposed. On a blog he can get away with it. He's been demolished and he knows it, so he's been reduced to witless comments and snide ripostes,

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Sep 2016 #permalink

So do you run the program on SSE at your institution Jeff?

And there we see again at #62 an example of the flippancy so typical of 'he who cannot be named' the flippancy that Jeff has noted.

If a student in class behaved in this manner he would be warned and if he continues in this vein he would be thrown off the course. If 'he who cannot be named' wishes to be treated with respect then he has to earn that respect. Carrying on in the manner of 'he who cannot be named' seen on this page alone is not worthy of respect.

I wonder what subject 'he who cannot be named' lectured on? 'Propaganda 101 for Dummies' perhaps.

And Jeff.
Your idea of 'debating' is slinging personal abuse apparently?
If you would like to come to central NSW I can set up a debate for you if you would like?

I will come to NSW in the near future. But I want to point out your debating 'strategy' if one can call it that.

First, you are highly critical of those who argue that the current system under a neoliberal capitalist order is profoundly unsustainable. You go after people whose work you have either never read or have given a cursory glance - such as Chris Hedges and Derrick Jensen - simply because you have been taught to believe in the current system and anything that falls outside of that must by definition be 'dangerous'. Thinking you are on the moral and intellectual high ground and that your views are safe from scrutiny, you try and appear genuine by asking precisely whst measures we think would create a more egalitarian world in which the rights of everyone is taken into consideration and protection of the environment is considered a priority.

Here's where your dishonesty becomes apparent. This is simply because you think that we - Lionel and myself amongst others - will throw our hands in the air and say that we simply don't know. But that isn't what happens. We reply with concrete, well studied and published alternatives to the neoclassical business model and it's attendant predatory capitalism, based in a steady state approach that internalises the value of ecosystem services and tries to rein in the neoclassical obsession with economic growth for a more humane and pragmatic approach to economics.

If you had an ounce of integrity and honesty you would respond by asking to know more about the core tenets of a steady state approach, as well as learning about the different classes of ecosystem services and how we might find the means of factoring these into our economic system. But you don't do that. As expected, even though you know nothing about these fields of endeavour, you dismiss them with vacuous musings and dismissal.

Why did you respond this way? It's simple. You mean politically to the right, that us patently obvious, and you were clearly caught out by our answer. Rather than attempt to discuss the field in a rational way, you think that your best hope of retaining credibility is to use the old dismissal tactic. We provide links with in depth discussion and you completely ignore them as if they don't exist, a feeble attempt to claim the intellectual high ground.

You're pathetic.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Sep 2016 #permalink

Your idea of ‘debating’ is slinging personal abuse apparently?

To ignore rational arguments presented to you as citations as you do is insulting. Not least an insult on intelligence.

The citations are provided to help plug the yawning gap in your knowledge of a wicked problem which requires complex treatment, to ignore these and come back with the intellectually empty rhetoric so typical of you is to invite the scorn which you receive.

Calling you a dishonest flibbertigibbet is more a statement of fact than 'personal abuse'. If you don't like it you should know what to do.

Lionel, we have cornered Stu in his own ignorance. If he was remotely interested in engaging in a good discussion he would not have come back with his myopic bullshit when we brought up the concept of steady state economics and ecosystem services. I was frankly expecting him to do exactly what he did on the basis of his previous record on here, but nevertheless he could have done himself a favour and at least attempted to learn the basics of an economic theory that is included in the curricula of many if the world's leading universities. And there nothing really radical about it. Instead, as I anticipated, he blithely dismissed it with a few vacuous smears. Comments describing sse as a benevolent form of global dictatorship - particularly in a time when many nations are in thrall to the morally and ethically bankrupt system of neoliberalism - simply prove that Stu2 us a time wasting concern troll.

If Stu is willing to abandon some his Dunning-Kruger infused stupidly, I am more than willing to engage in polite discourse. But as long as he acts like a jerk he deserves to be treated like one.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Sep 2016 #permalink

Denial shills are also in other scientific and ecological fields it would appear.

And Jeff that steadystate org link was useful, I note that Tim Jackson who I introduced at #33 is listed there.

I have just ordered Czech, Brian. 2013. Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution to add to my current pile of 'to read' books. I will soon have to think about underpinning the house. Stu2 has no idea what an eclectic mix of books is, about the only thing I take little interest in is sport. History in various sub-fields, mathematics, the sciences (nice three volume set of Feynman on Physics), various branches of chemistry, cosmology, quantum physics and mechanics, geology, palaeontology, palaeoclimatology, titles on string theory. I find deep thinking about how the universe originated very therapeutic as I attempt sleep against a background of pain.

Although not interested in most sports maybe sport would provide an interesting study wrt the psychological and developmental need for such activities, and also what I suspect is the money laundering and other fiscal rackets for which the big leagues of anything are cover. I admire many of those who take part in swimming, field and track (especially the paralympians) but overpaid prima-donna footballers not so much. The waste in energy from the travel of fans involved, even within the UK, and floodlit matches after dusk are a chronic waste of energy IMHO, as bad as all the offices that stay lit at night.

Jeff.
Did you look at the John Cleese clip?

Jeff.
No one is saying that there is no literature on SSE.
It's just not an answer to the question.
No one is claiming that all is sweet and rosy.
The question implies, quite clearly, that issues are identifiable.
The question asks to pick one (eg overpopulation or access to education etc) and offer a single action to address that issue.
Waxing eloquent about the dark side of capitalism is not an answer to the question either.
As mentioned upthread, I originally thought it was overly simplistic, but have since learned otherwise.
If you don't want to answer it , that's your choice, no problem.

Actually, the Cleese video would apply well to that appalling Sky interview you linked to here months ago. I was barely able to keep my breakfast down after listening to that brazen propaganda.

The major problem with this well out of date attempt at comedy by Cleese is that he is trying to take the middle ground. In some cases that is appropriate but in the present political climate it sure as hell isn't, given that the most powerful nation in history is a fully fledged plutocracy. Cleese clearly made this around or before the time that Reagan and Thatcher came to power and took the world in a dangerous new direction. I am sure Cleese himself would cringe if he were to look back at this. In terms of the future, humanity faces massive challenges that were not apparent 30 years ago. If we don't change course, then we are effectively going into the abyss. No ands, ifs or buts.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Sep 2016 #permalink

And Jeff,
May I suggest, with respect, that your attempts to psychoanalise and then assign labels and tribes is not debating.
You are not the only well educated person commenting here nor is academia in general totally in agreeance with your political ideology.
For someone who claims to despise elitism, you surprise me with some of your comments.
I respect the fact that you're well educated.
Good for you.
However, your portrayal of it is rather petulant and akin to children arguing over who has the best Daddy or biggest bike or the best coloured drinking cup etc.

Stu, as is usual for you, you are missing the point. That is that you asked Lionel and me to suggest viable alternatives to a system in which there is clear evidence that it is vastly unsustainable and incompatible with a secure longer term future. We provide one, sse, with plenty of links, and right away, with little hesitation, you reply with vacuous dismissals.

That sums you up. Had you been an honest broker, you would have admitted that you know little about the field or about ecosystem services and you would have made further enquiries. Your behaviour is symptomatic of a concern troll. Well done. If you have anything remotely useful to say then say it. Otherwise go back to your cave.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
The question did not ask for viable alternatives to the entire system.
You have invented a new question to answer.

The question did not ask for viable alternatives to the entire system.

But there is the problem right there, the only way to achieve an ecologically sustainable way of life is to address the many fundamental issues that are sustaining the runaway economic expansion which is based upon false tenets. The question was ill formed in its naivety and thus incapable of a short simplistic answer.

You would have understood this if you had bothered to study the sources cited.

The fact that you find this a stumbling block is illustrative of the effect that civilisation has on people - from the cradle you have been inculcated into a slavish manner of thinking by immersion in an educational and media environment — which includes advertising, that ensures you think and behave in a manner acceptable to those who wish to control every aspect of your life.

You may well think that you are not so affected, this is another feature of the truly brainwashed, the abused, who have been normalised to the abuse and thus neutralised as a prospective dissenter.

If you had bothered to read Jensen you would understand the scenario.

As you have not as yet then your #79 is another insult, an insult to those who have taken the time to try to make you more informed and thus worthy of proper discussion.

The way Stu2 writes, one would think that steady state economics is some way out wacky approach based on a hippo-like ideology. That was his intent, anyway. Its obvious. I will repeat it until at least some of it sinks into his skull: the current dominant political ideology is incompatible with nature and our mid to long term welfare as a species. We know this categorically from the empirical evidence: a wide range of ecosystems across the biosphere are on the brink of collapse and the developed world alone is consuming far more natural capital than the planet can sustainably produce. Now if we can find some way within the current system to rein in the power of corporations and make them somehow accountable to democracy, then fine, let's try that route. But corporations are legally bound to maximise profit. In doing so they do everything they can to circumvent democracy and accountability.

These are dangerous times that call for radical measures. I am trained as an ecologist to be able to see the current trajectory and to evaluate where this is headed. Stu isn't. He just does not possess the acumen or education to understand the inexorable link between the functioning of natural system and human well being nor of the root causes of ecological collapse. He thinks he does, but he most assuredly does not. He's a tweaker who somehow thinks that there is no alternative to the current system and therefore that we sink or swim in it. Well we are sinking - fast. The prevailing ideology just does not recognise limits to material growth. The system is inbuilt to think ahead no further than a few years at most, yet we know that we are on a gradual but increasing descent into a world far different from what we are used to. Few politicians have any grounding in science, as Shawn Otto explains in his latest book (thanks for the tip rr kampen). Most are educated in law, history, English or related fields. This often explains why there are profound differences in opinion between the scientific community and the political and corporate classes, as well as the fact that, as I said, corporations are legally obliged to pursue the bottom line.

Steady state economics does not require a massive overhaul of society, but it does mean that we have to abandon the mantra of economic growth that pervades economic discourse. The fact that so many faculties cover SSE in their curricula is proof if ever were needed that it is not some far-fetched theory but that it may be the viable alternative to the current system that is so urgently needed.

Stu spins, weaves, dodges and avoids discussing any topic that does not fall within his limited sphere of comfort, and that is that we must work within the current system. The fact that he has a history of trying to downplay the effects of climate change on the natural and material economies is proof of that. He does not deny AGW, but he is one of those luke-warmers who tries to put a 'moderate' spin on it. Bear in mind that he is not a scientist, does not study any related fields, but he does not shy away from copy-pasting the opinions of some old guys on the academic fringe when it comes to examining the effects of AGW. I recall that link he once pasted a link to a web page of a supposed 'expert' on coral reefs with respect to warming. I looked up the 'expert's' bonafides and it turns out he had hardly published a paper in his academic career. This is a typical stunt of climate change deniers: bloat the qualifications of people whose views they like out of all proportion, and relentlessly smear much more qualified scientists whose opinions they disagree with.

Most importantly, Stu could learn something in engaging in discussion with me and Lionel, but he prefers to live in his little neoliberal glass house.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Sep 2016 #permalink

oops hippie... but I like hippo too!

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff & Lionel.
Given that you say that it's nigh impossible to take the whole dominant system on, how about instead thinking about simple things that can make a difference?
If all you've got is to is to keep saying 'the only way' is to change the whole structure , then complain that it's impossible because of people not agreeing, then you have nothing other than a recipe for failure.
Please try and focus on the question.
Choose one identifiable issue (eg population growth or access to education etc) and offer a single socio-economic change that would specifically address that issue.
It's a simple question fellas.

Simple simply won't do. I have said it a million times and I repeat: its delaying the inevitable. The ruling elites love your kind of apprach Stu because it means that the system they control remains intact.

We'd better start making major adjustments soon or else the shit is going to literally hit the fan. Future generations - at least from what is left from the rubble - will look back and say what the f*** were you doing? Didn't you see that humanity and the natural world were on a major collision course? Why didn't you take serious measures to rectify it?

Human greed is going to destroy our species.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Sep 2016 #permalink

I disagree Jeff.
The ruling elite prefer your approach.

Is that insider information at #85 I wonder.

Whatever, once again 'he who cannot be named' strikes with vacuity.

Stu2, Oh no they don't. Not in a million years. You're living in cloud cuckoo land, as we all by now know, but you provide no basics.

The very fact that the corporate sector and the US government they own have repeatedly fought against full cost pricing (internalizing the value of provisioning ecosystem services) crushes your point at the outset. Full cost pricing is a core tenet of steady state economics. The ruling elites are terrified of it because it means that will have to factor in environmental damage into their business decisions, something that will vastly reduce their profits (or so they believe). So they fight it tooth and nail. Right now the costs of economic activity on the environment are externalized and thus borne on the general public who have little choice but to acquiesce.

Its so easy proving you wrong. Your brilliant method of countering arguments is to say, "No it won't" or "You're not right" and then to leave it at that.

You can't debate your way out of a dripping wet paper bag Stu. Cease and desist.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Sep 2016 #permalink

Instead of that.
Perhaps you could consider answering a simple question?

'he who cannot be named' should stay off the pickles - they tend to give you the repeats. His simple questions are ill formed, just as Dr Emily Shuckburgh told a certain Peter Lilley in denier put down gold, and then the Peter 'throws his toys out of the pram' like the spoiled child he is, incredible.

I have answered it. Rein in the power of corporations by much more heavily regulating them. Make them accountable to democracy. Also democratize the media. Make global attempts to prevent outsourcing. Internalize the value of ecosystem services. Politically, prevent corporations contributing to elections (as in the US) and make corporate lobbying illegal. Severe fines for the breaking of environmental laws including lengthy prison sentences for corporate CEOs. A much more egalitarian tax system, and efforts to prevent the exploitation of tax loopholes by the rich. Stop NAFTA, TTIP, TPP and other investors rights agreements. This is just a start.

Then a move towards a steady state economy.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Sep 2016 #permalink

"Its so easy proving you wrong. Your brilliant method of countering arguments is to say, “No it won’t” or “You’re not right” and then to leave it at that. "

If it's good enough for him to use, it's good enough to use against him.

Stupid, Jeff and Lionel's answers aren't for you, since we all know you're equipped neither mentally nor emotionally to listen to it, but for anyone else here who is just reading.

As for me, I refuse to take part in your delusions and prefer the reality and to deal with it rather than hide my face in denial and fantasies.

"I disagree Jeff."

That still means you're wrong, Stupid.

"Your idea of ‘debating’ is slinging personal abuse apparently?"

And crying off that if you insult him or anyone else that this is "proof" you have lost the argument.

Remember, the moron has two faces. Both covered by his underpants.

Jeff.
Pick one identifiable issue.
There are many to choose from.
Overhauling the entire socio-economic system is not an answer to the question.
You are still attempting to answer another question that wasn't asked.

Stu, who do you think you are? My analyst? Why am I supposed to be answering your questions? I have correctly pointed out that humans and nature are on a serious collision course. Indeed, this has been known for the past 40 years, but the growing empirical evidence proves categorically that unless major changes are made in socio-economic policies and their effects on the natural economy, then we are in very serious trouble.

On this basis I have said what needs to be done. At least for starters. Now you can sit in your myopic glass room all you like and advocate measures that tweak the system a little here and a little there, but this will only marginally delay the inevitable.

For some ridiculous reason, you think that you have Lionel and me pinned down with your question. You don't. As I said your modus operandi is to try and evade your clearly shallow knowledge base by posing questions framed within your own limited mind-set. Thus you think that the best defence to camouflage your ignorance is to try an offensive approach. To anyone, this is patently obvious. The fact that your usual ripostes are "You're wrong" or "I don't agree" without any substance is telling. Your off the cuff remarks such as describing steady state economics as a kind of 'benevolent dictatorship' also reveal your superficial understanding of the field of ecological economics.

You realise how lucky you are that a few of bus actually still respond to you? The reason I do it has nothing to do with you; its that laypeople who may pass through here will read the exchanges and I want to ensure that they see the vast differences in both our approaches and knowledge base. I also want them to loom up literature on sse and ecosystem services (something you haven't done) and learn for themselves.

Let's put the show on the other foot, shall we? How serious do you think the current predicament is, with an array of anthropogenic threats undermining the very foundations of our existence? What do you think of the warning issued in Rio in 1992 entitled 'World Scientists Warning to Humanity', signed by 70% of the living Nobel Laureates at the time? In what direction as a whole do you think we have gone since that time?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
I think there are anthropogenic and environmental issues that need to be addressed.
I'm not interested in pinning you down.
I'm not interested in analyzing you.
I'm not interested in debating you.
I'm interested in addressing the actual issues.
Pick one and address it.
If you'd like a suggestion, let's pick unsustainable population growth.

To address unsustainable population growth first one needs to ascertain:

In what form is population growth?

Is population growth the same in all populated regions of the globe?

What factors determine population growth;

e.g. environmental, social, traditions?

Why is population growth unsustainable?

That could lead onto questions surrounding the unsustainable lifestyles of e.g. one percenters and the agents who work to preserve that particular status quo.

In other words which sections of the population of the world should be controlled and what aspects of their society should be under control?

And you thought is was a simple question!

Here is a gift as a prompt for you to inform yourself, just the tip, of the tip of the tip of the iceberg that I could draw from, print out and separate as handy book marks.

Sylvia Earl in her book The World is Blue (see image at link above) mentioned the work of Ransom Myers and Boris Worm pdf, a little long in the tooth now but provides some scientific underpinning for the question of why unsustainable should be applied to ways of life, societal norms, rather than population per se.

But this is only one aspect of the many challenges facing us as we continue to consume resources faster than the natural world can replenish it. The population at large are as ignorant of all this as they are about the irrationality of abiotic oil.

You have been presented with many, many examples and information to break you out of your simplistic mode of thought.

Having recently put up a post on social media referencing CASSE I got one response, 'Reduce birth rates, simple'. And that respondent had links to follow also.

When are you going to realize Stu that environmental problems are linked? And underlying all of this are (1) overconsumption by the wealthy countries coupled with egregiously large ecological deficits; (2) policies aimed at maintaining this disparity; (3) immense corporate power that enables them to avoid, manipulate or even control the democratic process; (4) evolutionary programming of our genomes that prevents us from understanding what we perceive as gradual change but in the context of complex adaptive systems is the blink of a geological eye.

All environmental problems have root causes linked to politics and economics. Its too simple to focus on a simple issue like overpopulation without properly contextualizing it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Sep 2016 #permalink

Good.
At least you're having a go.
Lionel says that 'reduce birth rates' is one obvious answer.
So what is one socio-economic change that could help to facilitate that?
Despite Jeff's attempt to over complicate it all on one hand and then attribute all the ills of the world to only one thing on the other, there is evidence that some socio-economic systems facilitate lowering birth rates and/or family size.
It can be contextualized.

Goeff Hardley blather "I have answered it. Rein in the power of corporations by much more heavily regulating them. Make them accountable to democracy. Also democratize the media. Make global attempts to prevent outsourcing. Internalize the value of ecosystem services. Politically, prevent corporations contributing to elections (as in the US) and make corporate lobbying illegal. Severe fines for the breaking of environmental laws including lengthy prison sentences for corporate CEOs. A much more egalitarian tax system, and efforts to prevent the exploitation of tax loopholes by the rich. Stop NAFTA, TTIP, TPP and other investors rights agreements. This is just a start.

Then a move towards a steady state economy"

Geoffie: congratulations to your program of sustainable mass murder to the poor. I have never seen such an abominable over-fanatic idiot like you in my whole life. Stop your insanities.

Hey guys, I do not believe in ecosystem services.

Donald Trump for president!

Kim opines, "Hey guys, I do not believe in ecosystem services".

Well there you have it, the bottom line. Our new resident retard makes his pitch. Kim of course won't tell us what it is he does for a living but take it from me, it isn't something that requires much brain power.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Sep 2016 #permalink

Then its get better: Crazy Kim, of course without providing any evidence whatsoever, claims that getting rid of NAFTA, TTIP and TPP will create what he claims is ' sustainable mass murder to the poor'. It can't get much more banal and funny, folks. These 'trade' agreements are really not about trade at all but about investors rights and the means of allowing corporations to sue governments for lost profits. If one looks at the legacy of NAFTA, for instance, it has entrenched poverty across its wake and has resulted in a massive concentration of wealth.

But crazy Kim then goes on to scream, "Donald Trump for President!". Trump is against all three of these trade agreements. Ouch.

Kim, you may be the most stupid person ever to write into Deltoid. Congratulations. Given some of the sordid idiots who have written in here over the past decade, your claim for the top prize in the idiot category makes you very special in the worst kind of way.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Sep 2016 #permalink

Stu, population growth is a serious problem. But uneven wealth distribution and consumption patterns are far larger. The biggest concern of western planners is that the peoples of nations in the poor south - especially Africa, a new frontier for resource looting - will aspire to embrace nationalistic democracies. This will in turn conflict in a large way with the interests of western businesses and investors, and thus either depopulation (Kissinger's infamous document 200 outlined this), maintaining poverty (Kennan would have gone down this route) or military power (this is the neocons prime mover) are the three main strategies in ensuring that our corporate elites have direct access to and/or keep control of mineral and resource wealth in developing countries.

Poverty elimination has NEVER been a priority of western planners, who instead aim to 'maintain wealth disparities between the developed and developing worlds without threat to the national security of the United States and its proxies' (again, the gist of Kennan's words back in 1948 and relevant today).

Democracy has always been seen as a threat to the rich because it puts power into the hands of the citizenry who would use it to create more egalitarian societies - societies in which the rich lose considerable power and control.

So overpopulation is a red herring. Its a tool used endlessly by rich countries to deflect from the massive ecological deficits they maintain at home. Your attempt to drag the discussion into the sandbox won't work. I've moved so far beyond this in my lectures and courses, and I have no intention of catering to your kindergarten level attempt at discussion.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Sep 2016 #permalink

Jeff.
Unsustainable population growth is a common focus of many of the links and publications that you put up.
You commented upthread that countries like Australia have an acceptable eco footprint largely because of their population numbers.
And now you're arguing that it's a red herring?
That's interesting.
Methinks you are throwing in the red herring atm.

Lionel says that ‘reduce birth rates’ is one obvious answer.

Once again that is a mischracterisation of anything I wrote.

Stop this deceitful behaviour now, this is not how you earn the respect to be treated on the same level.

So Lionel?
Your comment @# 98, previous page, was not an attempt to answer the question?
And you also put up Pimentel and Jensen links, both of them with a focus on this issue (not exclusively I know) yet now you claim it's not important or that I have somehow misrepresented you??????

So Lionel?
Your comment @# 98, previous page, was not an attempt to answer the question?

Oh! My giddy aunt!

You fool, that post quoted the response of A. N. Other and was not my words.

Now I know you are an idiot with poor comprehension skills but that is a new low.

And you persist in mischaracterizing Jensen without having read him e.g. Endgame, now that is dishonest. Misrepresentation is your hallmark, it is as plain as a pike-staff you have no complaints for any 'brick-bats' put in your direction.

As for Pimental, that cite was to an article which was only addressing the dishonesty of Lomborgs arguments WRT his claims in his notorious book TSE about how crop yields will improve to cater for increasing population. If you had bothered to take note of all citations from Jeff and myself you would realise it is as much about ecological footprints as population numbers per. se.

You have skated over the points made in numerous posts and continued with your vacuous blather, and you wonder why we attach, apt, labels to you. D-K squared.

As a marker for how rapacious this civilisation and the economics which drive it are then this book tackles one example area:

To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa.

But then the price paid by those who live atop extractive industry activities is a feature world wide. Those in the UK, or elsewhere, who are paid off to allow the extraction to take place will regret it, or their descendants will. As Jensen points out, this is a form of abuse but the abused don't notice because they have been conditioned by their abusers. IOW it is pernicious abuse.

Lionel,
Read the Jensen points you linked.
Which point has one of the longest explanations?
You also agreed about Pimentel's focus upthread.
Why have you suddenly decided to duck away from this issue????

I have not, that is your miss-take mistake shit for brains as you spin around your own detritus!

No more mister nice guy from me.

Stu2, Last time I looked Australia was not the world. Indeed. it makes up only a tiny portion of it. So stop making yourself look like an ass by posting up witless replies. If everyone in the world lived like an Australian, then we'd need several more Earth like planets to sustain human consumption. However, the US, Europe and Japan have massive ecological deficits and uneven ecological footprints. So even though the US only makes up about 5% or so of the world''s population they consume about 20% of its capital.

As Lionel says, you are forever beating around the bush in a feeble attempt to gain the intellectual high ground. Why do you even try - we are annihilating every pathetic point that you make.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Sep 2016 #permalink

And oh stupid, birth rate does not necessarily correlate with population growth. For some idea of why this is so just get a hold of the book I cited in #10 and try to understand what is written within. Now I know that could be a difficult task for you so here is some help.

Jeff.
I'm not interested in gaining the intellectual high ground.
I'm interested in discussing the actual issues.
Lionel.
You raised birth rates @#98.
I agree that it's not the only factor influencing population growth, but it is indeed a major factor.
Why are you both avoiding discussing what is recognised by experts as a global issue?

Jeff.
You named 4 countries upthread and correlated it with population.
There are other countries where population growth is stabilizing.
I'm of course fully aware that Australia is not the world.

Lionel.
You raised birth rates @#98.

No you numpty, I was quoting the words of A. N. Other simpleton such as yourself.

That is twice I have had to tell you now.

You really are a thick as two short planks.

Just heard on CNN and CBS: a lot of blacks are now willing to to vote for Trump and against the Clinton clan.

Lionel.
A.N. (whoever that is) did not raise the subject on this blog.
You did @#98.
You also linked Pimentel & Jensen's points who both raise population growth as a concerning issue.
But it now appears you don't agree with either of them on this issue?
Why is that?
It's definitely a 'conextualised' issue with plenty of data.
I linked one data set above, there are numerous others.
One of the other issues you raised was access to education.
Maybe you might feel more comfortable discussing that one?

Henry Giroux, a sociologist at McMaster University, has written a book called 'America at War with Itself'. In it he critiques the current neoliberal order. He defines neoliberalism thusly:

"It believes that the market is basically the answer to solving all problems, that profit-making is basically the essence of democracy, that the only obligation of citizenship is consumerism. It celebrates the values of privatization, deregulation and consumption. It suggests that businesses should regulate themselves. It argues that self-interest is the highest ideal with respect in some way to addressing the common good. It has a deep disdain for public goods, for the common good. It operates off the assumption that competition in a kind of shock-like mode of interaction is the only way to really survive in society. It embraces a kind of warlike assumption regarding social relations, meaning that the best way to get ahead is to pit oneself with each other".

That about sums it up. Its what Jensen, Hedges and others argue that we must dismantle if we are to have any chance of a successful and prosperous future. This is where this 'debate' should be focused and not on the pedantics Stu clings to.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Sep 2016 #permalink

As for Stu's link, its the same bullshit smear that is repeated over, and over, and over again by those mostly on the political right. Its kindergarten level discourse, aimed to delegitimise in some way the very real consequences of a corporate dominated world in which we live. And its not amusing at all, but in keeping with the depth of Stu's arguments, pathetically puerile.

As I have said, in a academic setting me, Hedges, Jensen and many others are light years ahead of people of Stu's calibre. He's stuck in an intellectually basal quicksand pit, and tries to reduce every soundbite to the lowest common denominator.

As I said, pathetic.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Sep 2016 #permalink

A.N. (whoever that is) did not raise the subject on this blog.
You did @#98.

This is rapidly becoming surreal. I was using the remark of A. N. Other (Do you understand the concept of using such a moniker?) to point out how simplistic considering birthrate in isolation was, my reply to A. N. Other included: 'that is not the whole picture, not by a long chalk'. Get it now oh obtuse one?

This meshes with your linked to info-graphic which not a data set BTW being something completely different. Once again you grade is in the z- range for ignorance.

You also linked Pimentel & Jensen’s points who both raise population growth as a concerning issue.
But it now appears you don’t agree with either of them on this issue?

You bloody fool, how would you know, you have not studied their writings in any depth to be able to judge. Whatever, does it not occur to you that by citing, and quoting, them I am in tacit agreement with their lines of reasoning. This is supported by the information contained in the books presented in that bookmark at page 4 #97.

I figure that you skipped over that in your race to fill posts with more babblefuck.

We link to articles by those who have investigated, studied and thought deeply about these problems because we recognise the need for multilayer, multifaceted approaches to solving this 'wicked problem'.

The general population needs to be informed about all this and the media fails badly here. Who gives a rats arse about how celebrity X is feeling about the break up with celebrity Y because of the actions of celebrity Z? I cringe when I think of the resources wasted pumping out such as 'Hello' and 'OK' to name but two from a host of superficial attention getters.

There is so little worthwhile and truly informative comment in the media with far too many rabid opinion columns full of lies and obfuscations. Forbes, WSJ, The Times, The Mail on Sunday, Telegraph and Australian being top of the list.

The shenanigans in the field of sports is but just one symptom of a distorted society. I don't really care much that Sam Allardyce (now I don't follow football aka soccer) has been caught out other than it pulls back the curtain, a little, on the effects of too much money swilling around the organisers of the game.

Other than presenting them as sources of valid information there is little point in discussing further with somebody stuck at the information stage of the continuum:

data — information — knowledge — understanding — wisdom

as you made abundantly clear by confusing an info-graphic with a data set.

Every post you make you are hoisted higher on your own petard. But being awash in D-K you do not recognise even this simple fact.

Sigh :-(
Lionel
Read point 9 of Jensen's from your link upthread.
I have read enough of Jensen's work, including the DGR website to not be as impressed as you obviously are.
Jeff.
Get a grip.
It was a piece of satire.
I found it amusing, along with John Cleese's piece on extremism.
What a pity you have no sense of humour.
Whenever you blokes are ready to discuss the actual, real, bona fide issues, let me know OK?
So far you are only advancing a recipe for failure.
:-)

I would really recommend the warmists here to change their views on Donald Trump, as he provides considerable hope to overcome corrupt WDC political mechanisms which have deteriorated the country in the last years.

'Point 9', there is no Point 9.

Your inaccuracy in nomenclature demonstrates the casual approach you have to learning.

You only think you have read enough of Jensen's work but each of your replies demonstrates that you have not, or anything else relevant for that matter.

Another vacuous post from you, 'pile 'em high and hide beneath' should be your epitaph.

********* BREAING NEWS *********** REAKING NEWS ***********

Social media analyses show that Donad Trump had won the debate against the Clinton system

********* BREAING NEWS *********** REAKING NEWS ***********

Do I see bubkes at #26 and now #28.

Who unlocked the door of that asylum?

And it is clear from #25 above that, to use a phrase by Jim Eager on a Real Climate at #96 following an outbreak of ignorant insanity over there, some of the regulars here will remember the late Tim Curtin at that point:

Oh well, you can try to lead the ignorant to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.

Kim you mentally challenged nitwit. Get lost. You make an amoeba sound positively articulate.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Sep 2016 #permalink

Stu, as I said before, Cheese's piece on extremism is woefully past its sell-by date. You try and position Derrick Jensen as being extremist in his views yet nothing - NOTHING - he says in his two Endgame volumes is remotely extreme. However, neoliberalism is certainly extreme in terms of its impacts on nature and humanity. The reason it is not seen that way by many is that it has been normalized by our state-corporate media.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Sep 2016 #permalink

Sigh:-(
Lionel.
Your link @#73 on page 3.
Point 9 of Jensen's 20 premises.
Jeff.
Check out DGR.
That's Jensen too.
He has every right to his opinions, but I'm not a fan.

And Jeff.
Cleese's piece on extremism is just as funny and just as clever as it was when he produced it.
You can modernise some of the labels if you like, but Cleese's amusing observation remains valid IMHO.