Comments on: Impartiality my arse

By: Stan

Stan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:38:00 +0000

Firstly, worldwide oil consumption is actually increasing, especially with the emerging economies of China and India
Secondly, oil isn’t just used as fuel. It provides plastics, asphalt, lubricants etc… In fact, many of the current price increases in food are due to increasing costs in oil-based packaging rather than the cost of the products themselves.
Thirdly, oil production isn’t charity based. It’s a business. Oil production is regulated by profit margins rather than need. Production could be increased tomorrow and the price would fall, but the profit per barrel would be lower. The same goes for gas prices. Seen all the adds taken out by gas companies telling you how to use less gas? Do you think that they want less profit? Hell no. You use less but the price goes up to compensate.
Then of course, the oil producing countries have the US by the balls. Saudi Arabia has massive investment in the USA, the removal of which would cause untold damage to its economy, as would the threat to price oil in euros per barrel instead of dollars.
And finally, hybrid cars suck bigtime.
All in all, the efforts of individuals to be green doesn’t really make that much difference when compared to the ecological damage corporations do.

By: jerry

jerry — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:04:40 +0000

I have always been wondering why oil prices have increased so heavily if its so bad for the enviorment and people are actually starting to consume less.On hearing the news of hybrid cars and more alternative energy,shouldnt the price of oil sink dramatically?
I still think the human has at least a tiny impact on the climate of the earth but sometimes I wonder if its really that big or that some shock capitalists have seen their chance to make a load of money.

By: Stan

Stan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:55:07 +0000

I take it you’ve never been to a radical left wing meeting : )
You can have a perfect consensus of opinion regarding the entire agenda but at the end of the night you’ll still end up with half a dozen warring factions based around whether the coffee was fair trade and did the cow that gave the milk come from a workers collective.

Right wingers just tend to obey the stern looking lady in black leather with the whip.

Hmmm, perhaps I’m on the wrong side…….

By: wonkotsane

wonkotsane — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:23:53 +0000

Left wingers tend to believe that unity is the answer whether it makes sense or not, right wingers tend to be bolshy, argumentative buggers. Just a generalisation, obvously, but that’s the way it seems to me.

By: Stan

Stan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:11:48 +0000

Yes I understand that, and I’m not saying that they are wrong because I don’t know.
It’s just odd that left wingers tend to believe in climate change whereas right wingers do not. Something as serious as this should be independent. Knowing that several of the scientists involved are funded by the oil and coal industry or the tobacco lobby does nothing for my scepticism.

Besides, given that much of the research is done with computer model predictions and given that the Met office can’t predict a shower on a cloudy day in April, I’m not sure what to believe

By: wonkotsane

wonkotsane — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:31:42 +0000

Everyone is biased to some extent though Stan because they will have their own opinion. There are 31,000 signatures on the Oregon Petition, even if 50% of them were from biased industry groups – a very unlikely figure but let’s assume – then that’s still 4 or 5 times as many 2,900 scientists who endorsed the IPPC report on climate change without taking off the 400 people whose names were added without their knowledge.

By: stan

stan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:55:23 +0000

The problem I’ve got with all this, is that research into global warming seems to be done by interest groups rather than independent researchers. The methodology behind the Oregon Petition is suspect to say the least – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition, and the Manhattan Declaration is littered with members of right-wing interest groups – http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2008/04/fun-with-manahtten-declaration-or-who.html

I’m not saying that either of them are wrong because I just don’t know, but the authors of the reports are just as biased as Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

The whole thing is of great concern to me because either the planet is doomed or someones making a whole load of cash out of a bunch of lies.
Does anyone know of any independent research because I can’t find any.